


Haunted

by Vulpesmellifera



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Apologetic John, Don't copy to another site, Halloween, M/M, Nightmares, POV John Watson, Post-Canon, Protective Sherlock Holmes, Scary, Sharing a Bed, Sherlock (TV) Season/Series 04 Fix-it, Threat of Child Endangerment, child endangerment, john watson is a mess, the nature of truth and forgiveness, things that go bump in the night - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-02 13:37:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulpesmellifera/pseuds/Vulpesmellifera
Summary: Plagued by the past, John moves himself and his daughter to a new flat for a fresh start - and it's not 221B Baker Street.While he grapples with new knowledge and old guilt, he's confronted with odd neighbors and strange noises in the night. But is it the new flat, or is John Watson losing his grip on reality?





	1. For Want of a Nail

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to notjustmom and ReynardinePotter for their beta work - you know I treasure you always. 
> 
> Thank you also to all the folks who have participated in A Halloween 13. It has been wonderful to see the outpouring of spooky, Halloween-themed creativity. Thank you, thank you.
> 
> As always, I have a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3eol2AA4ZDqROaI4A6RvP5) that helped to facilitate the writing of this story. 
> 
> Please enjoy my very first Johnlock fic. There will be a chapter every other day, with the last chapter landing on Halloween.

“Well, it’s a bit small, and the neighborhood's not the best, but it’s home.” _ For as long as I can stand it, anyway. _ John sets the box on the floor with a short groan. The boards creak, and the pile of boxes list to one side. He’s bought a rug in hopes of preventing Rosie from tripping over edges of bowed flooring. The walls of white plaster could use a coat of a brighter white, and the air is stale. _ This is what you get if you can’t afford better. _ Mary’s flat had drummed up some interest, according to the estate agent, and he had yet to figure out his next big step. “Like I said, it’s close to the surgery and to the nursery.”

Harry is behind him eyeing up the room. “Good thing you don’t have a lot of stuff.” If John were a dog, a line of fur would have raised along his spine. He touches his tongue to his canines and decides Harry didn’t mean anything by it.

“Most of it’s Rosie’s anyway.” He hasn’t kept anything of Mary’s. He’s sold her furniture, and bought a new sofa and table with chairs, and kept a small TV. He still has his own kitchen implements from living with Sherlock. Most everything else is toiletries, small mementos, his clothes, books, random office supplies, his laptop, and Rosie’s baby furniture. No knick-knacks, like stylish vases or candlesticks or throw pillows. Nothing that smacks of Mary’s careful curation of an ersatz suburban couple’s home.

“It was lucky you called. Nan and her girlfriend are trying to save up for their wedding, and every commission helps.” Harry places her box on top of John’s. “What are those boxes there?” She points to the stack of large, flat cardboard boxes lining the wall of the lounge. The room is small and this pile covers a quarter of it. 

“That’s the furniture. Ikea.” He tries not to think about the fact that more than likely he’ll be putting it all together himself while he tries to get Rosie to watch Peppa Pig. 

“At least the Ikea isn’t far.” She folds her arms. He takes advantage of her distraction to observe her - really look at her. She’s always been thin, same height as him, with a similar upturned nose. The similarities end there. Her hair is spiked and outrageously pink. A tattoo of a dragonfly adorns the inside of her left wrist and a fern on her right. She wears a black jumper over a plaid button down, skinny jeans, and combat boots. Piercings in her nose and eyebrow. Her eyes are a clear, dark blue, and her skin looks rosy, healthy. The most incongruous piece of the puzzle that is Harriet Watson is the gold cross on a delicate chain encircling her neck. A tiny figure of Christ hangs from the cross. It’s not clear if he’s meant to be dead already, or if he’s suffering, dying, in bone-shaking pain with stakes driven through his wrists and feet. Either a corpse or about to be one. Harry started wearing it not long after she joined AA.

She’s claimed sobriety for over a year now.

Her eyes catch his. “So.”

“Um, these boxes are Rosie’s. Will you take them to her room? I’ll go back down and grab more things.”

“Certainly.” She scrunches her nose at him, a little sign to let him know she knows he was staring and what he was thinking - and that she’s letting it go for his sake. Her expression shifts. “And hey, how come Sherlock isn’t helping?”

“Oh, he had a case.” _ It’s a six, John, but no worries, I won’t be needing you on your moving day. And it’s a case for Mycroft; you wouldn’t enjoy it. _

“Uh-huh. Hoped to meet him.”

John sucks his teeth. “Mm, yeah. Next time.” He scratches at the collar of his shirt. Sherlock probably took the case to avoid helping John move to a place that wasn’t Baker Street.

_ “Your room is always upstairs,” he’d said. John had laughed and Sherlock seemed surprised, and then stung, his face furrowed and his shoulders pulled in. _

_ “Sherlock, I have a child. I can’t move her into here. It’s not even safe!” _

_ “I would certainly -“ _

_ “No.” John shook his head. “And I don’t get enough sleep anyway. We can’t share a room.” _

_ Sherlock’s eyes widened. “John, I wasn’t suggesting we share a room.” _

_ “Not you, git. Me and Rosie.” He backtracked. “But not me and you, either!” He scoffed and turned away to avoid seeing the befuddled look on Sherlock’s face. _

And now John is here in a tiny two bedroom flat where Rosie’s room is barely more than a closet and his room would be overwhelmed by his double bed. 

_ It can’t be helped. _

“At least it’s the ground floor,” Harry calls from the hallway. 

He heads into the foyer and out the front door. The moving van is parked at the kerb. He grabs a box of his books and turns back to the building. A woman stands in the doorway with a soft, curious smile on her face. 

“Well, hello there!” Her face is full of thin lines and her hair is a lovely array of silver shades pulled back in a pink headband. She’s petite but stands straight with her shoulders back. “I’m your neighbor, Hettie.” 

“Hettie, nice to meet you. I’m John Watson.” He ambles up the steps. “Just getting things in, now.” Up close, he can see that her eyes are brown. Her collared shirt is white and her cardigan pink, over light coloured jeans. She looks a bit like he imagined his mother would have had she lived past sixty-five. 

“Splendid.” She steps to the side so John can moves past her with the box. “Was that your wife I heard inside?” 

“Oh, uh, no. That’s my sister Harriet.” He cringes at the thought of her having seen the ring on his finger. He’s thought about putting it away for good, not really needing a reminder of his dead wife. But he isn’t sure he’s met the requisite waiting period of a widower in mourning. People would notice. They might ask questions. None of them knew about the real Mary. 

None of them really knew the real him. 

“My daughter and I are moving in. Rosie.”

Hettie's face lit up. “What a darling name! Well, I shan’t keep you long, Mr Watson.”

“Oh, it’s Doctor, actually.” The weight of the books pull at his shoulders. “But you can call me John. I should get this inside.”

“Oh, of course! Doctor.” Once they’re in the foyer, she heads for the stairs leading to the first floor. “It was a pleasure meeting you. I’ll stop by later with a treat for you and that little one - after all, you’ll need it after all this heavy lifting.” 

“Thanks. Thank you. I'll see you later.” He heads for his door as he hears her step up the stairs, and her voice says, “Toodles.”

_ Shit. I closed the door. _ He balances the box on his hip and turns the handle. Harry is just inside.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Oh, just one of the neighbours. I seem to attract old women looking for surrogate sons.”

Harry snorts. “It’s that face you got. All earnest, gnome-like and boyish.”

“Gnome-like? Piss off. We’ve practically got the same face.”

“Mine’s got less wrinkles.” She winks at him and her eyebrow ring glints in the low light.

“Why don’t you get the next box of books?” 

“No thank you. My back’s still good and I’d like to keep it that way. I’ll grab the suitcases.” 

John bites his lip and puts the books down against the wall. He looks back at the leaning pile of flat Ikea boxes. _ Wonder if I can get Harriet to bring the rest of the stuff in while I build this...or vice versa. _ He hates to ask. He’d been so dependent on her when he returned from Afghanistan, but her bouts of drunken belligerence had driven a wedge between them. Clara left and Harry was a bitter wreck. 

“Hey, how are you going to build all that and make her room ready before you have to pick her up?” Harry enters the room, two suitcases in hand. She smells of cigarettes.

“Well, if you’d bring in boxes while I got started, I might be able to put together the sofa. The most cumbersome thing in the van is probably her drawers. I took apart her crib.”

“Yeah, no. Listen, let’s unload the van together. I’ll set up her room and you build the sofa.” 

“Really? I didn’t think you’d be able to stay too long.” 

“It’s okay. I think you need the help more than I need a new manicure.”

John huffs a laugh. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Or, you can pay for my next manicure.”

“Deal.” 

Harry leaves the room, dragging along two suitcases. 

Their reconciliation hasn’t been easy. Hurt feelings linger on both sides, and neither can easily admit their faults. 

But if Sherlock could learn to forgive Eurus and Mycroft... 

And he’d forgiven Mary. John didn’t quite understand that sort of capacity for forgiveness, and in some ways it made him angry. 

He’s forgiven John. 

Again, he thinks of Harry’s necklace. Christ on a cross. The echoes of Matthew 6:12-15 - _ if you forgive men their trespasses - _

_ “Confession is good for the weary,” his mother said. Jean Watson had a tired face, round with a pointed nose and dour lines. “Your father could have used it now and again.” _

His father leaving had been quite possibly the best thing to happen to her, even if she did get a little over-involved with the church after that. So involved that she had little time for anything else. Harry had a room in the house but was rarely under the roof. John was thirteen and determined to make himself the man of the house. 

But he didn’t stand up to their mother when Harry brought home Annette. When Jean Watson called her a sinner and told her to never return. 

After that, she prayed for Harry every night. John could remember how sore his knees got as he kneeled beside her, coerced into praying to a god he wasn’t sure was on the side of right. 

He wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

Sherlock didn’t seem to subscribe to anything but order and logic. Maybe somehow it all added up in that big brain of his; he’d figured out that somehow the only way through was to forgive. 

Movement from Harry disturbs his thoughts. He’s determined to be on the side of right. “Hey, um, you don’t have to rush off when I get Rosie. You could stay for dinner.”

She pauses. Her eyes shift to him as if to assess his level of sincerity. “Thanks, John. I’d love to, really, but I have a meeting.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s good. I’m glad you’re sticking to that.” Harry used to attend two meetings a day, and now was down to one every other day. “Really.”

She picked at the hem of her shirt and shrugged her shoulders. But then she smiled and met his eyes. “Thanks.”

* * *

“I’m glad you like blueberry. They’ve always been a favourite of mine, and I like to add a bit of lemon zest.” Hettie places the tray on the kitchen counter and turns to face the room. John has rolled out the rug and Rosie is sitting amongst her toys, ignoring the adults. She’s gone straight for her toy piano, banging the keys with a relentless enthusiasm for the bright dissonance she produces. John was just preparing dinner when Hettie knocked. 

“She’s darling.” 

“Thanks.” _ Goddamn Harry for leaving out the toy piano. _ “Er, would you like a seat on the sofa?” He’s dying to collapse on the sofa himself; his body is riddled with aches. “Haven’t had a chance to build the other furniture yet. Can I get you some tea?”

“I’ve just had some, thank you, Doctor Watson.” She waves a hand at him. “How are you liking the place?”

“Well, it’s the right size for the two of us.” _ So long as Rosie doesn’t grow. _

“But small, eh? The stairs are getting to be a bit much for Richard and me, but we’ve lived here so long.” She shakes her head as she places a hand with thin fingers and knobbly knuckles over her chest. “And we’re still spry. We’ve got a few years yet.” 

“So, uh, did you know the people before us?” John stirs peas into the sauce. Rosie seems to have inherited her godfather’s love for them. 

“Like you, it was only two.” She scrunches up her face as if in concentration; her eyes wander to a high corner of the room. “My memory may be slipping a bit, from time to time. But, I do remember coming down here to help clean out the place.”

John pauses in his stirring. “To clean out the place?”

“Yes,” she says. “They died. I -” she casts her gaze to the floor, and sways. John drops the spoon in the pot with a clatter and steps toward her. “Goodness,” she says, and straightens. “I must have overdone it today. I’m mixing my memories, I think.”

_ Sundowning? _ John’s eyes flick over her. She’s a fair-skinned woman, but her colour appears healthy enough. Her eyes are clear. But the signs of dementia can be difficult to gauge in the early stages. 

The piano notes in the lounge halt. He glances to Rosie to see her interest switch to her plastic animals. 

“We were sitting in the kitchen, having a bit of tea, when we heard footsteps from the hall. Well, no one was supposed to be here but us, so my Richard jumped up to face whoever it was - bless the man - and there was no one to be seen.” She chuckles. A tendril of worry worms its way into his chest. It’s such a non-sequitur, that John wonders if he’s missed a part of the conversation while looking in on his daughter. “I mean, you’re a doctor, do you suppose we could have both imagined it?” She shakes her head, and goes on. “Sometimes the lights flicker, but you know the old wiring in these buildings.” She presses a finger to her lips and in the kitchen light he can admire the gleam of nails painted a coral pink. “Of course, ours don’t flicker nearly as often, but I suppose that has to do with the location of the problem. Perhaps the closer to the basement, the more faulty the wiring in this place.”

A knock at the door startles him. “Excuse me.” He brushes past Hettie and answers the door, catching a whiff of powder and perfume as he does.

The man standing outside is only a couple inches taller than him, with straw-colored hair silvered around the temples. He has a ruddy face and cheeks that can only be described as jowls. “Hello, sir. I believe you have my wife.” His voice booms past John and into the flat. His smile is big and his eyes are watery and bright.

“Oh, Richie, get in here and introduce yourself!” Hettie calls.

John stands back and throws his arm out to invite the man in. 

“Hettie, will you stop bothering the man?” Richard speaks as if everyone is in need of a hearing aid. “Apologies, Doctor, once she gets going there’s sometimes no stopping her.” 

“It’s quite alright,” John says, and though he smiles he knows the lines around his face likely give away his discomfort. _ Sherlock would see it. _“I’m John Watson. This is my daughter, Rosie.”

Rosie ignores Richard and looks to John. “Baba?”

John smiles apologetically. “She’s ready for dinner.”

“Baba?” Her little voice says again.

“Give me a minute, Watson.” It’s become a habit with him to call her Watson. He’d thought it strange when he’d first heard Sherlock calling her Watson, but it was apropos to the detective. The first time John did it, he laughed at himself. But he kept doing it - just not around Sherlock.

“Well, then, shall we, Hettie?”

“Wouldn’t want to delay the little one’s dinner. Do enjoy those scones, John. So good to meet you.” Hettie gives Rosie a little wave and takes her husband’s arm on the way out the door. “Welcome to the block.” 

“Good to meet you, Doctor Watson.” Richard gives him a sharp nod and a big smile as he lets his wife pull him out the door.

“Likewise.” John shuts the door behind him.

“Baba?” Rosie stands and looks at John with serious blue eyes.

“Yes, yes. I’ll make you a baba - er, bottle, right now. I’m on it.” 

* * *

John sets the baby monitor on the second pillow. He still sleeps on the right side. His body will eventually list toward the middle during the night, but he starts here. He turns the monitor on and watches the black and white image of Rosie’s sleeping form. It’s taken some time to get used to being a dad. In many ways, he can fake it. He smiles for her benefit. He speaks to her kindly. 

In trying to be more present with her, he takes fewer cases with Sherlock. He works at the surgery and put her into a nursery so she can socialise with other toddlers. She’s made friends, which surprised him and pleased him all at once to discover. The caretakers are sweet on her. He picks her up and fixes her dinner, gives her a bath, and rocks her to sleep. She’s learning words, and using her pacifier less and less. She moos like a cow and says “dada” and knows different animals and has names for her favourite toys. 

It’s strange that she doesn’t really look like either of her parents, but he figures that might actually be better. Being reminded of Mary leads to a conflicted sense of rage followed by grief.

_ We’ll be fine_. Still, John’s insides ache with all the thoughts of what might have been. After the affair that never was, he knew it was over for him and his wife. The hallucination might have forgiven him, but Mary the real person who shot his best friend in order to keep John? Unlikely. _ So then what? _

_ Sherlock. _Who had kept his secrets close, even when - 

_ God. Just stop. _

But it’s the same thing his brain circles around to nearly every night. The conversation where Sherlock spilled all his secrets. It was post-case, Rosie asleep in Sherlock’s room, and the two of them drinking whisky, sitting across from each other in their chairs like old times.

_ That’s why John stays. _

_ He’d been thinking about those words, tracing one finger over the rim of the glass. The fireplace was lit and cast a glow that melded with the warm light of the lamps. Sherlock plucked at his violin, but John could tell his mind was on something. _

_ “Eurus?” he’d asked. “How is...uh...that going?” _

_ “She plays admirably. She taught me, you know.” _

_ “That’s...remarkable.” He almost choked on the words, but he’d decided to do his best to be supportive of Sherlock’s seemingly newfound empathy. _

But it was there all along, wasn’t it?

_ In small doses. When Sherlock wasn’t distracted. Untying Sarah and telling her everything would be okay. Asking John if… _

_ “Are you alright?” John blinked at Sherlock’s question. _

_ “Are you?” He shot back. The whisky was hot on his tongue. _

_ Sherlock pursed his lips and paused in his plucking of the violin. “You’re seeing Ella again.” _

_ “Yes.” There was never any point in prevaricating. _

_ “Do you…” Sherlock cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “Does it bother you that I see Eurus?” _

_ “I’m...I’m of two minds about it. But, it isn’t really my business.” _

_ “Considering what she did to you…” _

_ “To us,” John stated. “To us.” _

_ “You’re angry.” _

_ John let out a long sigh. “I’m...getting better.” _

_ “Therapy?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ Sherlock’s eyes narrowed a bit. _

_ “No. Don’t do that.” John pointed a finger over the top of his glass. “No deductions. Now, how about you? Or is this violin playing with your sister helping?” _

_ “I’m fine,” Sherlock answered in a clipped voice. _

_ “No. No.” John’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth. “You said...you called me family. I think you’ve learned that lies among family…” He breathed in the air, trying to get enough to get out what he had to say. “Not so good, is it?” _

_ Sherlock dropped his chin and closed his eyes. _

_ “I think it’s imperative to our friendship...that we tell the truth.” _

_ Sherlock’s eyes flicked up to him, like binary stars in the low light. _

_ “So, I’ll go first.” He gripped the arm of the chair. “The memory of your jump was the most visited moment in my head.” He wanted to stop, wished he’d said nothing. But he’d started, and he’d continue. “I kept thinking of how I could do it over. Just punishing myself over and over and over. I kept hearing your voice say ‘you see but you do not observe’ and I kept asking myself what did I miss? How could I, your best friend and your flatmate, not see that you were going to throw yourself off of a building? And how could I have not found the words to keep you from jumping? In that moment...that moment when you most needed me? That’s why I was so angry when you came back. That’s why I was so hard with you.” The old anger was rising in his belly again like embers catching fire on fresh tinder. He needed to smother it, so he could finish what he’d started. “And now, you’ve got this whole new thing in your life. Your life was...shaped on lies so I see now why you lie so easily to me and to others and probably to yourself. Sometimes I wonder...is anything real between us? How much of it is real and how much of it is a lie?” _

_ A moment passed before Sherlock spoke, his voice like the low rumble of an engine. “I had no choice when I jumped. You may not believe me, but in this, I do not lie. Moriarty had three assassins trained on you, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade.” Something worked across his face and his lips trembled, but then he hardened and John could see he thought better of saying something. _

_ “No. Out with it.” His hand on his glass was white knuckled and cramped. _

_ Sherlock pursed his lips and lowered his eyes to the floor. “He said he’d burn the heart out of me.” It was so quiet John almost missed it. “Moriarty could’ve called them off, but instead he shot himself. Jumping and faking my death was the only way I could save you three.” _

_ It was like someone took a seam ripper and split the threads tying together the strands of the universe. “But...you were gone so long.” _He’s Sherlock; who would he bother protecting? 

_ “I was tasked with taking down Moriarty’s network. It was best that I remain dead in order to do so.” _

_ “I could have helped.” _

_ Sherlock shook his head and faced the fire. “Knowing you were safe, John, knowing you were safe was...everything - to me. I am sorry. It won’t happen again.” _

_ John snorted as he rubbed one hand over his mouth. “This isn’t...god Sherlock, this isn’t like drugging my tea! Or like you forgot the milk!” _

_“Are those two things on par with one another?”_

_“No they’re bloody not!” But then he saw the glint in Sherlock’s eye. He laughed, and then he sobered. “You jumped to save me. And them.”_

_“Yes.”_

_ “Why...why did you make me watch?” _

_ “You weren’t supposed to be there. You were supposed to be with Mrs Hudson. Possibly saving her from the assassin assigned to her depending on how things went with the roof.” _

_ John shook his head. “This is a lot. There’s a lot-“ he rubs his head. “There’s a lot to process. A lot for one person.” His stomach swooped with a sick feeling. “Were you...were you safe when you were taking down his network?” _

_ “As much as one could be on a clandestine mission,” Sherlock tossed out which rankled John. _

_“No. That - see? That right there.” _ _  
_

_“And you? You’re not exactly an open book, now are you, John?” _

_ “You can deduce everything about me. How can you say that?” _

_ Sherlock’s eyes glittered. “Yes, I can, but there’s always something, isn’t there?” _

_ John felt like they teetered too close to something he didn’t want said aloud, and he stood and announced he was taking Rosie home. Sherlock didn’t answer, just held his glass and his violin and stared into the fire. _

_ Fuck me. _John flops back on his pillow and closes his eyes.

12:31 a.m.

Rosie’s crying wakes him. He checks the monitor. She’s snuffling, rubbing her eyes. She might go back to sleep. _ Please go back to sleep. _ His room is like a dark cave with only the cold, white glow of the baby monitor. There’s a tiny window in each of their rooms. He put black out curtains on Rosie’s, but no light filters in through his own, likely because there’s only a narrow thread of alleyway between two buildings. The sky must be moonless on top of it.

John rolls over on his side and closes his eyes.

1:40 a.m.

John’s eyes open. The air’s quiet. No noise from the monitor. No. Wait. There it is. Rosie’s soft breathing interrupted by a low gasp. Was she dreaming? What do toddlers dream? 

He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. His mind spins with thoughts of Hettie’s words. Footsteps in the hallway. Richard and Hettie hallucinating them together.

Nothing there.

Another small gasp on the monitor. More of Rosie’s gentle breathing.

The amorphous shapes against the dark of the ceiling begin to form sinister faces. He closes his eyes. _ Fuck. You need to sleep. _

3:22 a.m.

Rosie cries. John flings one arm over his eyes as he listens to her small cries. Sometimes she does this, and falls back asleep. The shadows along the walls seem to flicker and move, despite the constant glow of the monitor. Dreamy figures falling from rooftops. 

_ No. Go to goddamn sleep. _

Twenty minutes later, John drifts off.

4:57 a.m.

“Dada?”

John groans. _ Holy fuck. Holy shit. Holy fuck. _

_ I need more sleep. _

“Dada!” Her calls are still soft, but will become more insistent the longer he ignores her.

He looks up at the ceiling again. His room is dark aside from the monitor, so he reaches to the lamp at his bedside, and turns it on. He sits at the edge of the bed and rubs his eyes. When he opens them, the lamp flicks off. 

And back on. 

John stares at it.

“Dada!” comes the cry over the monitor.

_ Light flickering. Faulty wiring. Right. _

He shoves himself up from the bed, and heads to Rosie’s room. 

* * *

After a day of colds and rashes and migraine complaints, John picks Rosie up from the nursery and takes her home, he balancing her and their bags, she clutching her favourite toy giraffe. He rounds the corner and enters the gate that leads to their door. The front door is open. The outline of a tall, dark haired man in a short, beige jacket with a high collar takes up the entrance. He moves further into the building and closes the door behind him. 

“Hey!” John says before the door shuts. “Damn.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his keys. His lower back strains with Rosie’s weight on one hip and her bag over one shoulder. His own satchel is over his other shoulder. 

_ Who was that guy? Visiting Hettie and Richard? _What if he isn’t supposed to be in the building?

John darts up the two steps to the door and unlocks it. The door in the foyer that leads to the basement is open, and the man’s head and shoulders sink down as he follows the stairs. 

“Hello? Can I help you?” John hugs Rosie closer.

The door to the basement closes.

“Hello?” John says in a louder voice.

No answer. 

Rosie shakes her giraffe toy in the air, then pelts it to the ground. “Uh oh,” she says.

“Rosie, hush.” He strains to hear any footsteps. He walks to the door and checks the knob. It’s unlocked, so he opens it. The stairwell is dark. “Hello?”

No one answers. 

A light switch is on the wall. He flicks it on and the overhead bulb flares to life. The stairs are wooden, and the walls a simple white. No one is to be seen.

“Dada!” Rosie says. She points to the door that leads to their flat. “Uh, uh, uh.”

“Wait, wait,” John says. His heart rate increases as he says “Hello?” again and gets nothing.

“No!” Rosie whines, then screws her face up as she begins to snivel and sniff.

“Okay, okay, we’ll go, we’re going,” he grumbles, and hits the light switch before closing the door. Rosie continues to fuss as he unlocks his own door and enters their flat. Before he can wonder about asking Hettie and Richard about the mysterious visitor, Rosie’s fussing escalates into a full blown tantrum that hurts his ears. 

* * *

John opens his eyes. The room is dark, but the baby monitor emits a strange sound. Besides Rosie’s calm breathing. Something else. 

_ There. What’s that? _

A _ creak. _ And then again. 

John sits up. He flips on the monitor screen. There’s Rosie, her face above the blanket, pacifier in her mouth.

A hand comes into view, hovering over her slumbering face. A _hand_ reaching for his sleeping daughter.

A hot gasp erupts from his mouth as he hops from the bed and grabs his gun from the drawer of the nightstand. He snatches his mobile from the charger and shoulders through his bedroom door as he checks the bullets in the gun. 

_ Slam _ goes Rosie’s door as he rockets through, gun and mobile raised - flashlight on - and points them toward the crib.

The beam of light illuminates her room, with no one in it.

No one but Rosie, who wakes with the noise and cries from the shock.

John sweeps the room with the gun and the light and checks behind the door. His pulse buzzes in his ears like a plague of locusts. His heart tugs at the sound of Rosie’s cries, but he needs to concentrate on his quarry.

He stands stock still in the doorway. Then leans his head out into the hallway. The intruder might have gone into his room when he entered Rosie’s - _ he might be in the kitchen or the lounge_. _ But how did he get in? I always lock the door _ \- but Sherlock and any number of people can pick a lock - _ and you’re on the ground floor_. John checks Rosie’s window. It’s small, and the lock is in place. 

If he takes Rosie with him, she might get injured or worse in a fight. If he sweeps the front room or his room, it’s possible he’ll go the wrong way and the perpetrator could enter his daughter’s room again. Potentially use Rosie as a hostage. His heart twists at the thought. _ I can’t think - I can’t think. _

Paralysis might get them both killed.

He dials a number. 

Sherlock picks up on the second ring. “Are you safe?” The resonance of that rich voice soothes something inside of John, while the content of his question twangs a nerve. 

“Someone’s here,” John whispers. _ How did you know? _

“I’m coming.” _ Click. _

John shines the light around, following with the muzzle of his gun in case the intruder shows themself. Now all he can do is wait. 

_ Sherlock is coming. It’ll be fine. _

_ How did he know? _

Rosie ratchets her wails up to screaming. _ Shit. _ What if Hettie and Richard hear? If there’s someone in the flat, he doesn’t want to involve them. For now, he’ll guard the entrance to his daughter's room, and help is on the way.

The passing of time seems interminable. _ Sherlock could probably say exactly how many minutes have passed. _ John points his gun to the floor and turns off the flashlight in his phone. He stands by the doorway, listens for movement in the flat. Rosie’s distress quiets into sniffles. He strains to hear over her noises. _ There. Is someone breathing? _

_ Was that a floorboard creaking? _

_ Did that noise just come from my room? _

He listens for things that would be out of place.

Except they haven’t been here long enough to know what “in place” sounds like, and John’s exhausted, and his nerves jangle from having seen the hand on Rosie’s baby monitor, and her subsequent upset. 

_ Did I imagine it? _

It seemed plain as day. A large hand, a man’s hand. What else about it?_ Sherlock would be able to deduce things about its owner. What else was there to notice? _

_ Trim, clean fingernails. Right hand, so no ring. _

His thumb rubbed at his own ring. _ Why am I still wearing it? _

_ Not important, right now. _

_ Holy Jesus fuck. _What if he’d imagined it like he had imagined Mary? 

But why would he? It was obvious to him now that he’d imagined her as a way to cope. The hand didn’t fit.

Rosie has gone back to sleep.

_ Christ on a cross, when will Sherlock get here? _ He grips the gun until his hand cramps.

_ Get it together. _

_ The guy from the basement? _ He walked down in the dark. He never answered John. Why would he sneak into their flat?

It could have something to do with Sherlock, or with one of their cases. 

_ Sherlock’s coming. He’ll figure it out. He’ll figure it out. _

John draws air into his lungs, filling them full, and releases in one, long out-breath. 

_Soon. Sherlock will come soon._

That’s when he hears it. A _ click _ in the front of the flat. A _ creak _ of the door opening. He peers around the doorframe and down the hall. A light from a torch flashes through the front rooms. 

“I’m here, John,” Sherlock’s deep voice carries through the flat and coats his nerves like a salve.

“I’m in Rosie’s room,” John answers in a loud whisper. The lights in the lounge flip on. John waits, muscles tense, ready for any sounds of a confrontation. Then the lights in the kitchen come on. He hears Sherlock approach the hall. 

When he sees Sherlock’s tall silhouette, his shoulders ease. Sherlock strides down the hallway. He looks at John and then past John into Rosie’s room.

“They have to be in my room,” John whispers. But again, he begins to doubt. 

He isn’t sure what he wants. To be proven right or wrong.

But when Sherlock sweeps past him and heads for the open bedroom door at the end of the hall, he wants to be wrong. He stops himself from calling out to his friend.

He watches as Sherlock disappears into his bedroom. His room light comes on and floods that part of the hallway. A moment of quiet passes, and then Sherlock emerges. He looks John in the eye and shakes his head. 

John slumps against the doorframe. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Sherlock, I swear…”

“What did you see?” John startles as he realises Sherlock’s standing right in front of him, almost too close, as he often does. Sherlock looms. John can smell notes of shampoo and cologne.

“I woke up because there was a strange noise on the baby monitor.” He lifts his hands in the air, each one respectively holding a gun and his mobile. “And then I saw - oh, forget it. Obviously, I imagined it.”

“Tell me.”

Sherlock won’t be able to leave it alone. “A hand. A hand reached into her crib. A man’s hand. Trim, clean fingernails. It was his right hand.” He folds his arms. Sherlock seems to consider him appraisingly; the muscles around his eyes relax and his mouth twitches. 

Maybe he recognises John’s details as his attempt at deduction. 

“Is there any sign of someone, could they have left when they heard me get you? This is the ground flat - could they have gone out a window?”

Sherlock’s brow creases as his nose wrinkles. “John, no one with large hands like you’re describing could fit through any of these windows. It would require someone the size of a child or a jockey. You, for instance.”

John glares. 

Sherlock turns away as if to pretend not to see the glare. “If you want to know what I see, I’ll tell you. You and Rosie had risotto for dinner, and you gave her a bath. She had one last bottle for the night and you put her to bed. You stayed up on the sofa - is that comfortable at all? One of those Ikea things, is it? Looks dreadful and not to your taste at all. Nonetheless, you stayed up later than you should, probably watching something banal, and then you finally brushed your teeth and put yourself to bed, where you had a good wank to help you drift off to dreamland. Am I missing anything?”

John stares at him, his arms still folded. He turns to take one last look at Rosie, then steps outside her room and into the hallway with Sherlock. He closes the door, but leaves it open a crack as he always does. “What you’re missing is the part where I call you a berk for deducing my personal habits.”

“Whatever lets you sleep at night, John. You obviously need it. You’ve lost three pounds and the circles under your eyes could fit coins.”

John facepalms. “Why did I call you?”

“Yes, why did you call me rather than the police?” Sherlock smiles at him, one of those mirthless, condescending ones that John despises. Then it fades from his face. “Perhaps your subconscious knew it would be a false report.”

“Great. My subconscious knows better than I do.”

“It’s not surprising, John. Our subconscious picks up on more details than we realise.”

“See, observe, blah blah blah.” John waves his hand at him.

Sherlock narrows his eyes at him - not in anger, but in confusion. “This isn’t -“

“Listen, thank you for coming over. You can have the bloody Ikea sofa you just complained about. I’m going back to bed.”

Sherlock glances toward the lounge. “Doesn’t seem very hospitable to offer your guest -“

“Take it or leave it.”

Sherlock lets out a put upon sigh. “I shall take it. Provided it can actually fit me.”

John wishes he could make a joke, but his mind is muddled and the adrenaline has long worn off. “Do what you like. I’m knackered.” He shuffles down the hall and when he hits the pillow, he tries not to think about anything, and especially not about the man sleeping on his sofa. 


	2. Ring Around the Rosey

Upon the next morning, Sherlock is gone from the sofa. A glance at his phone reveals a text. 

** _Received_ **

_ Case. -SH _

For a moment, John wishes he could call out of the surgery, drop Rosie off at the nursery, and join Sherlock. It's like a whine behind the rib cage and in the back of his skull. He checks the time.

_ Why isn’t Rosie awake yet? _

His heart joins his throat as he rushes to her room. But she’s asleep in her crib. Fully dressed. And it’s late for her to be sleeping.

** _Sent_ **

_ Did you dress Rosie this morning? _

** _Received_ **

_ Of course, who else? I also gave her a bottle, changed her nappy, and put her back down. I’m not sure either of you get enough sleep. - SH _

John can’t help his smile. 

** _Sent_ **

_ Now it’s you pestering us to sleep? Never thought I’d see the day. _

** _Received_ **

_ It’s clear to me that some minds require more sleep to function at optimum capacity. A disadvantage, to be sure. - SH _

John laughs. _ Arse_. He shakes his head and prepares coffee. 

** _Sent _ **

_ I was thinking of calling out, if you need help with the case. _

** _Received_ **

_ No help required. - SH _

_ Probably already solved it. _ John frowns. Exhaustion hangs on him, and the adrenaline of a case might invigorate him, might wake him up to life again, to the rush of blood and the siren call of danger and the thrill of evading death each time.

But not today.

* * *

“Look, Rosie, your daddy’s here!” Mrs Elwes is a short, pillowy woman with dyed blonde hair and joyful brown eyes. She speaks with a soft, sing-song cadence that John figures comes from years of speaking to small children. It's a bit off-putting, but she's nice enough. “She seemed a bit sleepy today, Doctor Watson. I assume it’s the move. Such a big change for a little person.” 

“A big change for all of us,” John says with a cheerfulness forced into his tone. He gathers Rosie’s nappy bag as she comes toddling toward him, a beaming smile on her face. The room is full of brightly colored rugs and little furniture for little people. It smells of nappies and strawberries and baby powder. “Hello, sweetheart.” She wears a purple shirt with a smiling sun on the front, and tiny jeans with a ruffle on the rear. Her light brown hair is pulled up in two perfect pigtails. He never gets her hair right - it’s always riddled with bumps no matter how he uses a comb to try and smooth it. The caretakers never say anything; they just send her home with hair tidier than with what she arrives. 

It takes a minute to tuck her into her jacket. He sweeps her up into his arms, and she settles her legs around his waist, bum to his hip. “B’bye,” she says as she waves one tiny hand to Ms. Elwes, who coos over the attention. 

John smiles. “Thank you, and we’ll see you tomorrow.” He adjusts the nappy bag and his satchel, and heads for the nearest tube station. Rosie is getting bigger all the time and his lower back is already starting to complain.

He decides to text - it’s a one-thumbed art he’s perfected while carrying the bags and Rosie. 

** _Sent_ **

_ How’s the case going? _

Rosie points at things and burbles. "Yes, that's a car," John says. "And that woman is walking a dog." There's a buzz when Sherlock replies. 

** _Received_ **

_ Solved. -SH _

** _Sent_ **

_ Rosie and I just finished our day. Can we stop by? _

** _Received_ **

_ You and Watson are always welcome at 221B. _

John tries not to think of the awkward conversation about the three of them living together - _ John, I wasn’t suggesting we share a room - _ and hails a taxi rather than grabbing the tube.

Inside 221B, everything seems much the same except larger piles of papers. He's never been a big fan of the avocado colors of the kitchen, but today they strike a chord of nostalgia. Sherlock is in a sky blue fitted shirt and dark, navy trousers, all beneath a burgundy dressing gown. He’s seated at John’s desk - or what had been John’s desk - and leafing through a large book. The curls - _the curls_ \- frame his face, crinkled with concentration.

“Eh-lah,” Rosie says as she points a finger at him. 

Sherlock shuts his book and stands. “Watson, hello. John.”

He walks into the kitchen and checks a pot on the stove. John can smell oregano and basil, but that seems an odd odor for Sherlock's kitchen. 

“Experiment?” John places Rosie on the ground and unloads her nappy bag.

“Dinner.” Sherlock grabs a colander and places it in the sink. 

John stares at the dishes and pots. “Um, was anything used to contain body parts?”

Sherlock scoffs and dumps the boiling pot of spaghetti into the colander. “I assume Watson enjoys pasta?”

“She does.” He takes Rosie’s jacket off and checks at toddler height to ensure nothing dangerous is within reach. 

“I’ve prepared for your visit,” Sherlock says. “If you close the door to the stairs, she should be perfectly safe.”

“Thanks.” He looks around. The outlets are covered, the sharp corners of furniture seemed to have been filed to rounded, and a safety gate blocks the fireplace. 

John closes the door to the stairs and watches as Rosie waddles over to Sherlock. 

“Watson! Your gross motor skills are advancing nicely. How are your animal vocalisations?” 

“Yeah,” Rosie says.

“Excellent! Tonight I’ve created spaghetti and meatballs. A pedestrian dish likely suited to your tastebuds.” 

Rosie stares at him, her hands by her sides. Next to the towering figure of Sherlock, she really looks quite tiny. The domestic tableau triggers a tickling of warmth inside John.

He pulls his eyes away. “So, what was the case?”

“Case? Oh yes. Missing jewels. Murder of a young maid. It was the woman of the house, of course. Cheating husband, scorned wife, jewels supposedly stolen to make it look like it was a burglary gone wrong.” He flares his nostrils. “Ugly bits of humanity rising to the surface of society once again to remind us all of our base animal instincts.” He enunciates each syllable with alacrity, and a wrinkle of his nose. “Very droll.”

John winces at cheating husband. If it hadn't been Eurus, if it had been some other woman, would she still be alive? Not knowing seems worse than knowing, somehow. 

Sherlock, as if ignorant of John’s discomfort, or perhaps due to to it, scoops Rosie into his arms who lets out a high pitched squeal and shuts her eyes. “Watson dear, we have much to be appreciative for, however. A child’s laughter, and the beauty of the stars, and all that sentimental drivel.” Rosie giggles as he swings her through the air again. John’s reminded of a night, long ago, when he’d been ensnared in Sherlock’s thrall, and then surprised by the man’s remark on a clear, star-studded sky. Sherlock’s chin tilted to the heavens, like some tall, rare and beautiful bird against the London gloaming.

Sherlock stops; he’s holding Rosie to his chest. Both sets of eyes focus on John, one pair a clear blue, and the other ever-changing like the seas. “Your father thinks I have no understanding or appreciation for beauty, or for love.” His gaze is piercing, exacting, like a hawk or bird of prey - an owl against the gloaming. John keeps still like a mouse hiding at dusk. “He would be wrong.” 

His stomach flips like an acrobat from a trapeze. His mouth is dry and his heart rate surges. Sherlock breaks their stare to look at Rosie. “It wouldn’t be the first time for him. It’s like he forgets that I’m a genius.” He grins, that mercurial, predatory grin, and the world seems right again, though it leaves John in its wake, endeavouring not to go under with a flailing of arms and a gasping of breath.

Sherlock whirls Rosie around once more and then places her in the high chair. He gets out the plates, not looking once at John, leaving John to wonder if he imagined it, imagined the intense, hungry look on Sherlock's face. 

Sherlock serves the spaghetti, much to Rosie’s delight, and they sit around the dinner table. Sherlock entertains John with further details on the case - the body was in the garden and of course one has to take in variables of wind and weather when analysing blood spatter patterns, not to mention the surface variances of plants and substrate. He deduces John’s day at the surgery - sprained finger, stomach virus, flu - and John is content to listen. He smiles. His back no longer aches and his limbs are loose. A sense of all being right with the world fills him; he hasn't felt that in some time and it _kills_ to recognize that. 

Rosie is getting sleepy. His gut clenches at the thought of travelling home.

As he stands at the door to leave, Sherlock stands next to him. Rosie lays her head on John’s shoulder, and sighs. Sherlock touches her head, gently. “Sweet dreams, little Watson.” 

The softness in his voice does something to John’s insides. This isn’t new. Sherlock is uncharacteristically affectionate with Rosie. John's face radiates with heat as a joyful flicker dances between his ribs. 

Sherlock’s eyes drill into his. The lamps highlight the sharpness of his cheekbones and cast deep shadows below them. His mouth seems close, inviting. He speaks, “If there is trouble, John, call me. I will come.”

John works the muscles of his throat. His mouth has gone dry again and he finds little moisture there to soothe the ache that lingers. He nods.

Sherlock bobs his chin, once, and John heads down the stairs and out the door, feeling as though he’s left something important behind.

* * *

The foyer light is off and the flat is quiet when they enter. The slight, dusty smell of cardboard hangs in the air. Their breakfast dishes lie in the sink. Rosie sleeps on his shoulder. He lets the bags slide to the floor and heads through the lounge and kitchen to the hall.

When he enters her room, he pauses. The baby monitor is clipped to the end of the crib, switched to off. Her room is as they left it that morning.

John grinds his teeth at the memory of the hand reaching into her crib.

_ Tonight. Just for tonight. _

He grabs her pyjamas and a fresh nappy. Rosie lets out a few soft cries as he changes her at the changing table and puts her into the soft, footie pyjamas - white with yellow ducklings. She rubs her face hard with her hands, and he quiets her fussing with a pacifier. “Tough times lately, huh, little Watson?” He smiles as she holds out her arms to him. He acquiesces, cradling her close to him. “Tonight you’ll sleep in daddy’s bed.”

_ Maybe they’ll both get more sleep. _

He lays her on the left side of the bed with a line of pillows blocking her from the edge. 

It isn’t long before he decides to join her, once the breakfast dishes are washed and another box of his books are unpacked and shelved. 

* * *

He dreams that night of finding Sherlock in the morgue. A sharp, chemical smell curls in the air. Culverton Smith isn’t anywhere to be seen. It’s Sherlock, haggard and unshaven, brandishing the scalpel at no one. 

“What are you doing?” John demands.

Sherlock mutters something, and John can’t make head nor tails of it. Sherlock’s arms flail; the scalpel coruscates in the fluorescent lights. “Stop it,” John says.

He doesn’t stop.

“Stop it.” John’s fists clench. “Stop it.”

He’s not sure when he moves, but he’s standing over Sherlock, kicking the downed man in the ribs. The scalpel lays a few feet away like a sliver of mercury on the tile floor. Sherlock mutters, and somewhere, John hears the laughter. 

“Stop it.” He squeezes his head between his hands. The laughter fades. Sherlock mutters, and John can almost make out the words. He crouches down by his friend holding his ribs and stomach, blood on his face. “What is it? What are you saying?”

Sherlock repeats the phrase, over and over and over. 

John moves closer, lowering his ear to his friend’s lips.

“Save John Watson. Save John Watson.”

John jerks back and falls on his arse. Before he can react, he hears something new.

Rosie. 

The sheets are stuck to his body and to his daughter beside him. He peels the covers back and pulls her into his arms. After he flips the bedside light on, he leans back to see her face. Her eyes are screwed shut, her face is red, and she bawls. Tears course down her cheeks. “Sweetheart, sweetheart, what is it? What is it?”

She uses her tiny arms to push him away. John flashes back his dream. 

_ Oh fuck. Oh God. Did I hurt her? _

He begins checking her over for welts and marks. She doesn’t exhibit any sign of injury, but it’s another five minutes before her cries calm. She sniffles, hiccups, and curls up in his arms.

He touches his own face to find it wet with sweat and tears.

* * *

The lights flicker off and on throughout the next evening. Rosie is teething, cranky, and querulous. John's knackered. He hears the occasional strange creaking and groaning of the building, but reminds himself that the place is old and likely settling, and he also has neighbours, though he hasn’t seen anyone in a couple days. 

He’s relieved when Rosie finally sleeps - in her own crib. He must have imagined the hand in the baby monitor, and clearly, it isn’t safe for her to sleep in his bed. 

_ I’ve moved to a new place. I’m getting used to things. I haven’t had enough sleep. These are stressors that would bring back nightmares. _ It doesn’t make it any less unsettling, though. 

He stays up for a bit, watching reruns of _ Midsomer Murders_.

* * *

This time he dreams about the aquarium. Murky colours highlight the walls as large fish and sharks swim by and cast monstrous shadows in the curves and corners. As he runs, he hears the gunshot, and rounds the corner, expecting to see his wife on the floor and a bevy of people standing around in shock. 

Instead, his wife is standing, dressed in her wedding gown like some avenging bride. She points a sniper’s rifle to something on the floor across the way. Her gaze is unblinking, reptilian and cold. 

Sherlock. A pool of blood - black in the aquarium lighting - grows beneath his still form like spilled ink. The blue cast of the light gives him an unnatural, ghostly beauty, like the colour of stars on a chilly, fogless London night. 

“What have you done?” he croaks. 

In the distance, Rosie cries.

* * *

He sits up in bed. The monitor speakers crackle with her crying. John shakes himself from the malaise of the dream and rolls out of bed. He shuffles down the hall and rubs hard at the top of his head. Outside her door, all is quiet. He pushes the door open and peeks in. There's only the soft glow of the blue LED light on the baby monitor.

Like the blue light of the aquarium. 

He walks in further and looks over the edge of the crib. Rosie is sprawled out, her pacifier fallen from her mouth, and her eyes closed. 

_ Hm. Must have been crying in her sleep. _

He backs up, quietly. Closes the door, leaving open a tiny gap. Goes back to bed.

Less than an hour later, he hears her snuffling cries again. He listens for a few minutes until it seems she isn’t going to soothe herself back to sleep. 

Getting to his feet, Rosie’s cries increase in volume. “Coming, sweetheart,” he calls out as he opens his door to the hall.

When he enters her room, all is quiet. He looks in on the crib again. Rosie is curled on her side, pacifier pushed to one edge of the crib. The blue LED glow illuminates just enough of her features for John to be able to tell that she is asleep.

_ Has been asleep? _

John trudges back to his room as his mind spins. _ What the fuck? _

This time, he lays awake, eyes on the ceiling. Sure enough, an hour passes, and crying sounds over the monitor again. This time, he flicks on the screen. 

Rosie is asleep. Her mouth is parted, but her lips don’t move in time with the cries. The muscles around her closed eyes are relaxed with sleep. 

The sound of crying continues.

John’s heart hammers. He leans up in his bed, his eyes on the monitor. Someone is crying, and it’s coming over the speaker. But it isn’t Rosie. And it isn’t just on the monitor - he can hear a muffled cry, if he listens carefully, reaching him through the wall they share. 

He covers his mouth with one hand. As he slides his legs out from beneath the blankets and his feet meet the floor, he pulls open the drawer and retrieves his pistol. _ Fuck, fuck, fuck. _

As before, when he reaches her door, the crying ceases. He pushes it open, slowly. 

He sweeps the room, pistol pointed out. He sidesteps to Rosie’s crib and peers in. She’s asleep. Safe.

There’s no one else.

John ignores what it could mean - _I mean, what could it mean - no_. He runs down the hall and grabs the coverlet and pillow from his bed. He places the pillow on the rug next to Rosie’s crib, lays down, and covers himself.

“Now do your worst,” he says, shivering.

_ But who’s listening?_

* * *

The next day is a Thursday. Everything seems distant and dull. Flat, like the world is a sequence of threadbare tapestries, or images in a half-remembered picture book. John covers for one of his co-workers, but he can just barely keep his eyes open. 

It’s a relief when the day ends and he picks up Rosie, waves goodbye to Ms Elwes, and heads home. He thinks about visiting Sherlock again, but doesn’t need the detective to deduce that he’s had another sleepless night. Or worse, that he might possibly be hallucinating. 

That he is hallucinating.

As he approaches the house, he sees the same strange man again in the doorway. The door is closing - John runs, Rosie and the bags jostling against him. “Hey! Hey, you!”

He catches the door right before it closes and shoves it open, ignoring the crash as it hits the wall. The man was heading toward the basement door, his large frame taking up most of the hallway, but he pauses.

“You! Stop! What are you doing here?” John shouts. The man turns, slowly, his eyes roving over John and Rosie with an expressionless stare that makes John’s hairs stand on end. He has shorn hair and dark skin.

Rosie bursts into tears. John angles her away so his body is between her and the stranger. He pushes his shoulders back and tips his chin up. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

The man doesn’t answer, only tilts his head and points to one ear.

“Doctor Watson, is that you?” Hettie’s voice floats from above them in the stairwell.

“Yes, Hettie, hello.” He clears his throat. “I’ve seen this guy here, twice, and I’m asking him what he’s doing here, but he hasn’t answered yet.” John glares at the man, who still doesn’t respond, though he watched John’s gaze track the stairs.

Hettie comes down a few steps and looks. “Oh, Doctor Watson, you haven’t met Arnie, have you?” John strains to hear her over Rosie’s crying.

“No, I haven’t,” John says as he bristles, and bounces Rosie on his hip.

“Arnie lives in the basement flat. Don’t mind him. He’s deaf. His sister checks in on him from time to time, and so do Richard and I.” Hettie smiles as she tucks a strand of silvery hair behind her ear. Arnie waves to her.

John reels - his face flames and his vocal cords work to get out his surprise - and express some sort of badly needed apology. “I- er, sorry.” He looks at the man and mouths ‘sorry,’ hoping he could read lips. _ Jesus Christ. _Rosie begins to quiet, and tucks her wet face into John’s neck. “Sorry to have disturbed all of you. I didn’t realise -”

He fumbles with his keys at the door, his neck hot as a brand as Hettie begins talking about how Arnie has lived in the building for several years. 

“Yes, yes, I was quite clearly in the wrong, now if you don’t mind, um, Hettie, I’m going to take care of Rosie. I’m sure she’s quite hungry for her dinner.” He glances at Arnie who watches him as if he were something small and interesting at the moment. John doesn’t look him in the eye as he apologises again. “Sorry, so sorry.”

“Oh yes, John, feed that darling girl. Have a wonderful evening?”

Once inside, John leans heavily against his door. Rosie looks up at his face. “Baba?”

_ No time. There’s never any time. It's always work or Rosie, Rosie or work._

_And now I've made an arse of myself._

He sets Rosie and the bags on the ground and kisses her on the crown of her head. “Dada’s going to fix dinner, now, Watson.” He squares his shoulders and clears his throat. Summoning Sherlock’s energy into the room helps to ground him. _ There’s nothing for it but to carry on with things. _

He burns his first attempt at dinner, but the second is a simple beans on toast, and Rosie doesn’t mind. 

* * *

_I regret this. _ He’s been scheduled to work in the morning. His back is killing him, protesting his terrible sleep on the hard floor of Rosie’s nursery. To be in his own bed is a relief, but the baby monitor sits next to him, screen switched to on. He can see the crown of Rosie’s head - so long as she stays at that end of the crib. Of course, she’s been known to roll about and end up upside down and sideways as she sleeps, but it’s a chance he’ll take.

He's more interested in the rest of the room. The frame now includes a view of the wall and the space between the crib and the wall. It’s the shared wall between their bedrooms.

His mind likes to play tricks - he’s imagined a face appearing over the rail of the crib, or a shadow walking along the wall. But in reality, there’s nothing.

So he curls up on his side to go to sleep.

Then he hears it.

Heavy, lumbering footsteps. Like a large man’s - _ the large hand in the baby monitor _ \- and John sits up, his heart pounds as he glances at the monitor. Rosie sleeps, and nothing moves within the viewpoint of the camera. 

The gun is beneath his pillow. He grabs it and eases open his door to the hallway. He wraps one arm around the doorframe with his gun pointed down the hall. He follows this move with his head. 

No one. 

_ Didn’t Hettie have this same story? Footsteps, and no one there? _

_ What the hell is happening? _

To be sure, he tiptoes down the hallway, and opens the door to Rosie’s room.

There's no sound but the soft breaths of his child. 

He draws in a lungful of air, and paces back to his room. He sits on the edge of his bed, gun heavy in his hand. Eventually, he lies down, and stares at the ceiling. He did this the night Sherlock came back. Stared, and thought about the nature of truth, and the nature of forgiveness, and how to deal with everything he was feeling. Sherlock back like the resurrection of Christ, but instead of three days it took two years. His prayers answered and his faith tested all in one go.

He’s still there, staring at the ceiling, when dawn’s light first filters through the single gauzy curtain of his one window. 

* * *

Blurred and dull, a fog settles like white noise on the events of the day. He tries to avoid talking to any of his coworkers, but a chatty, older nurse with a tattoo on one arm - a heart around the names of famous British suffragettes - and a mole over her lip sits beside him in the lunchroom. She smiles at him, and then winks. “Lookin’ a bit peaky today, Doctor. Long night?”

“You could say that,” he grumbles. No doubt the bags beneath his eyes have doubled in size.

Bette, that’s her name, unpacks her lunch bag. 

“This... might seem a bit odd, but what do you think of ghosts?” John avoids her eyes and pretends to chew his bacon butty, which is tasteless anyway, what with the cottony sensation in his ears, his eyes, and his mouth. 

“What do you mean, what do I think of them?” Bette replies as she separates her sandwich from the cling wrap. “I don’t spend much time thinking of them.”

“Do you...think they’re real?”

“Is this because of all the Halloween hullabaloo?” She chuckles and places her elbows on the table, holding the sandwich before her face. “I myself am a big fan of watching the horror specials on the telly.”

“Yeah, Halloween. Thin veil between the world and all that.” John waves his hand about in the air. 

“Well, when I was a little girl, my mother once told me that ghosts aren’t much to be concerned with. She told me about a ghost living in our very kitchen.”

His stomach tenses. “In your kitchen?”

“Yes. It would rattle the pots and pans. At first, my mum was a bit alarmed. Then, she got on with making dinner and she decided if that’s all it was going to do, then so what?”

John’s gaze goes unfocused._ Just cries on the monitor and footsteps in the hall. _

Realizing she’s ended on a question, he snaps his chin to her. “S-so, she thought 'so what?'” He folds his arms across his chest. 

“Well, yes. It’s a bit noisy, but so what?” She swallows, then laughs. “Wasn’t hurting anyone any more than the birds do while making their morning racket.”

“Right.” John makes a quiet noise in his throat. “Right. A bit noisy is all.”

Bette stares at him. He’s never realized how green her eyes are. 

“Are you feeling all right?” she asks.

“Mm. Yes, thank you.” John stands from his chair, the metal legs scraping against the floor in a rude protest. “Got to be getting back to work.”

He can feel the sensation of her gaze across the nape of his neck as he leaves.

* * *

John’s tongue explores an expanse of skin - white like ivory - and savours the soft tang of salt and blood. The body beneath him is taut with anticipation and suffused with the flush of ardour. He laves a path down the torso and into the coarse curls between white thighs, where the man’s cock, petal pink and long, strains with want. Kissing the soft flesh of the inner thighs, he slides his hands beneath the man’s bum to caress the curve of arse. It’s everything he’s wanted and didn’t think he could have. 

He lifts his head to see Sherlock looking down at him, an almost smug smile on his mouth. John answers with his own suggestive smile, and presses his lips against the ridge of Sherlock’s cock, trailing up until he could fit his mouth over the glans and swirl his tongue about the tip. Sherlock’s head falls backwards, and John can only think that Sherlock looks like a Renaissance painting, a seraphim in the throes of grace, glossy curls askew and face contorted with passion. He closes his eyes and slides his mouth down further, engulfing as much of Sherlock’s cock as he can. He rejoices at the sound of Sherlock in ecstasy, his moans and whimpers resounding with pleasure. 

Then Sherlock’s body goes rigid, and his moan becomes an anguished groan. John lifts his gaze up Sherlock’s body, to see a spot of red on his chest.

The hole there, like a red rose opening from bud to full bloom, grows, and John can see Sherlock’s heart leak from the aperture of his chest. The smell of blood and gunpowder, and the touch of cold flesh. He shoots up to sitting, but he can’t reach Sherlock’s wound to staunch the flow. He holds Sherlock’s wrist in his hand. _ No pulse. No pulse. _ Only the crimson pooling of vital fluid as Sherlock’s face pales, his eyes become unseeing, the galaxies within them dimming as his body goes into shock from the exsanguination. 

“No,” John mouths, but he can’t force the sound beyond his throat. “No, no, no, no -“

Sherlock’s eyes. Vacant and unmoving.

John wakes with his hand clutched over his heart. His breath is ragged and his eyes are stinging and wet. 

_ Sherlock is alive_. _He survived._ John breathes in, his throat rasping with air. _ Sherlock’s alive. _

And alone, in 221B, across London-

_ Wait. What was that sound? _

It’s like...giggling. 

_ Rosie? _

But that isn’t Rosie’s giggle. It’s low, and then rises up like a crescendo in an eerie carol.

Eldritch. Eldritch is the word John would use to describe it. Like Mary in the wedding dress in the blue light of the aquarium. 

He flips the monitor on. 

Nothing happens.

He hits the button again as his heart hammers against his sternum and bile gathers in the pit of his throat. The screen remains black, unseeing. 

He looks at the wall they share between them. The giggling is clear and coming through the wall, from Rosie's room. He rises from the bed. He opens the door as quietly as he can, wincing as the faint scrape of the hinges give away his movement. 

The floorboards aren’t quiet, either. He steps as softly as he can, tiptoeing down a hallway that seems a limitless stretch before him. 

When he reaches Rosie’s door, he releases his breath, and draws in a new one. 

The giggling stops.

He places his hand on the doorknob. Her door is never latched closed, but right now it is. 

He breathes out, and in again. He twists the knob and opens the door. 

He hits the lightswitch. Nothing happens. A giggle carries through the air and a shiver runs up John’s spine. He can see the shape of her crib, but not inside. The railing is covered by a baby quilt given to him by a coworker.

Something moves on the other side.

The sound of nails. Like nails scrabbling at wood, and the crib _ shakes_.

Fear threads its way through John’s ribs like the weft of a loom, and his pulse thrashes in his ears. “Rosie?” he tries, but no sound comes out. “Rosie?” he says again, his voice stronger. 

The crib rattles again, sending his heart into his throat as he grips the doorframe to keep himself from falling. He knows in his gut that it isn’t Rosie in the crib.

He pushes himself off the doorframe, and step by step, draws closer. Klaxons of panic flash in his head as the blood rushes in his ears so loud he thinks for an instant of a cave-in, and the darkness of the room is like thick coal dust obscuring his senses. 

The crib shakes again, startling him almost out of his skin. 

“Rosie?” he croaks. 

The lights come on. _ The flickering. The faulty wiring. _

He steps closer, and peers over the railing.

Nothing.

Nothing is there.

The crib is empty.

His eyes prickle as his stomach drops out. Terror swells in his chest as bile rises to his mouth. 

Something touches his leg.

John yelps and whirls in the air. There she stands, dressed in her pyjamas and holding her stuffed giraffe.

Rosie. Smiling.

John falls to his knees and clutches her close. Relief crashes around him in waves and tears spill down his cheeks. “Rosie, oh God, Rosie,” he says as he rocks them together. “Oh my God, how did you get out of the crib?” He pulls her back and looks at her. She pushes her hands against him and pouts at his face.

“Rosie, how did you get out of the crib?” His body and his voice shake with adrenaline. 

Rosie tips her chin up to him and says, “Mama.”

John freezes. The air is thin. 

Rosie doesn’t know that word. Mary died before Rosie began speaking, and John hadn’t bothered to teach it to her. “W-what?”

Rosie smiles at him, and says, “N’night.” She points to her crib.

“Oh God.” He hugs her to him again despite her pushing against him. He squeezes his eyes shut against the heat of his weeping. “Oh God.”

No one answers.


	3. When the Bough Breaks

“That’s a strange question, John.”

He rubs the side of his nose with two fingers, his chest tightening with the start of Harry’s scrutiny over the phone. “I just mean...did she ever say anything about it? Like, weird sounds?” He moves his hand to the small of his back and stretches to relieve the ache. After he finally got the two of them calmed down the night before, he ended up dragging his comforter into Rosie’s room and sleeping on the floor with Rosie beside him. After he took the quilt down from the crib so he could see in through the rails. 

“Well, she said it’s not in the greatest neighbourhood, but fairly safe. That it was empty awhile before the owner finally decided to rent it out again. What sounds are you talking about?”

“Just...I guess it’s just the place settling. Not used to it, I guess.” He rubs his eyes.

“Oooh, is it spooky?”

“No.” John’s mouth tightens into a thin line. He folds one arm over his chest and looks to his daughter in the high chair. Rosie pats her rice on the tray. She’s nibbled some of the peas and entirely ignored the chicken. “Just...odd. Just wondered if Nan might have ever mentioned it.”

“Not a thing to me, though she was ecstatic when you rented it. Like I said, she needed the commission.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” There’s a knock at the door. “Listen, someone’s here, let me see who it is."

He opens the door to see Hettie - he winces at the memory of her in the stairwell, watching him lose it with their deaf neighbour. “I’ll talk to you later, Harry, it’s my neighbour. Come in, Hettie.” 

“Oh?” Harry says. “You have a woman visiting so it’s get off the phone Harry?”

“Hello Doctor Watson, just thought I’d stop by and see how the two of you were getting on,” Hettie says with a beaming smile that makes her eyes squint. 

“Please, come in. She’d love a visit. We were just having dinner.” John points to his phone. “I’m just getting off the phone.”

“Who’s Hettie?” Harry asks in his ear.

“Oh I don’t mean to interrupt-"

“It’s no interruption. I gotta go, Harry. I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”

“Well give my love to Rosie-bug.” He can hear Harry’s smile in her voice.

“Will do. Bye.” He presses the button to hang up and puts his phone on the counter. 

Hettie is already cooing at Rosie while she eats. John moistens his lips, and starts thinking of how to say what he needs to say. “Uh, Hettie?”

“She’s a sweet one,” Hettie says as she lifts her face to John. 

“Yes.” He folds his arms. “Erm, listen. I want to apologise for the other day.” 

“The other day?”

“In the stairwell.” It’d sat in his stomach, stone-heavy and sharp. “I, uh, didn’t mean to alarm you, and I feel like a uh, a right git for yelling at a deaf man. What you must think of me -”

“Think nothing of it, Doctor Watson.”

“No, no.” John scrubs at his face with one hand, his eyelids weighted and his mind full of fog. “I ought to apologise to Arnie - you said his name was Arnie, yeah?”

“Yes, Arnie, he’s a dear. I check in on him from time to time. Come to think of it, haven’t seen him in a few days. Usually see him coming and going, but he’s been quiet as a church mouse.” 

“Mm.” John yawns and tries to cover it. “Uh, speaking of sounds, have you been hearing anything strange? Particularly at night?”

“Anything strange? I wouldn’t say so. It’s been rather quiet.” She seems to think about it, her liver-spotted hand stroking her chin with one finger. “And my poor Richard - seems he’s under the weather. I’d say it was a touch of the flu.” She draws in a deep breath, laying one hand over her chest as if in discomfort.

“Are you alright?” John asks.

“Perhaps I’m getting what Richard has.”

John’s eyes flick from Hettie to Rosie and back.

“Oh goodness me, of course. I’ll get out of your way. Wouldn’t want that poor girl getting sick.” She heads for the door, giving a little wave to Rosie, who is now taking bits of rice and dumping it on the floor.

“Thank you Hettie,” John says with a tired, somewhat bashful smile. He walks her to the door.

“Don’t be a stranger, now.” She smiles at him.

“I’ll do my best,” John says, and shuts the door behind her. He checks the lock and returns to Rosie.

He finds it hard to remember even making her dinner, or opening the door to Hettie.

“Jesus, I need sleep,” he mutters.

Rosie holds out some rice, intending to feed him. John smiles, bends his head, and accepts her messy offering on his lips.

* * *

His back twinges with pain. He’s spent several minutes wrestling Rosie into her pyjamas while she whined and fussed, one time going so far as to hit him with her open palm. 

“Rose, we don’t hit people,” he admonished her and held her hand in his, not letting her pull it from him. Her whining turned into a loud wail, and ever mindful of the thin walls and his neighbors, John scooped her up and tried to soothe her, though his back screamed at him. “Sorry, sweetheart. Let’s clean your teeth, and then it’s baba and n’night time.”

She loves the taste of her kids’ toothpaste, so she quiets and lets him go through the routine. When she finally lays her sleepy head on the crib mattress, the knot of apprehension grows larger in his gut. He forces air into his lungs and makes himself leave the room.

He sits in his own room, staring at the baby monitor. The camera is angled to see her head - eyes closed, the pacifier fallen half out of her cherubic mouth. He can see the wall over the head of the crib and half of her dresser. If someone were to stand next to the crib, he should be able to see part of them. He reaches for the mug of black tea he’s placed on the nightstand and takes a healthy swig. Eyes glued to the screen, he waits. 

It isn’t long before boredom sets in, but with his military training, John persists through the first two hours, never looking away from the baby monitor. He watches as Rosie cycles through the stages of sleep, tossing a bit sometimes, but never waking. 

His phone sits on the bed beside him, and beside it, the gun. 

While his eyes watch the monitor, his thoughts wander. _What Mary would have thought to see you._ Of course, they wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for Mary. And Sherlock. Two people who treated him like an idiot, and here he was, likely proving it to them. He’d thought Mary was his salvation at one point, but all along, she’d been some kind of Judas.

_What does that make Sherlock?_

_ Overthinking. _ He’ll figure this out by himself. Staking out his daughter’s crib, which seems to be the epicentre of weird shit - or maybe it’s the baby monitor. Either way, he’ll watch all night. Maybe Rosie actually can get out of the crib. Maybe one of his neighbours is actually the suspicious person he thinks they are.

It isn’t long before his eyes begin to smart from dryness - he’s blinking, but not enough apparently. He shakes his head, and returns to his vigil. 

There’s the groaning and shifting of the building, of course. Every noise that seems a little out of place catches his attention and nearly drags his eyes from the monitor, but he uses his periphery to check the space around him, keeping his main focus on the screen. Eventually, the sounds fade into the background. 

His breathing evens out, and his eyes droop. He rubs one eye, and then the other, never letting his attention take a break. 

He’s bushed and toilworn.

He’s been a shit father before this, and he isn’t going to do it anymore.

He is going to protect her as if his life depends on it.

He falls asleep.

When John wakes, he’s standing in Rosie’s room, before her crib. He startles, looks around, and down at his feet. _ How the fuck did I get here? _

That’s when he notices it - the blood. 

So much blood, like a field of crushed poppies saturating his clothes, his trousers, and his hands. His heart pounds in a driving rhythm as he lifts his hands to examine the red stain, and his ears buzz like there's a cloud of descending locusts, savage and hungry. 

“Oh my god,” he wheezes. “Oh my god!” 

Rosie jerks awake and screeches.

John clamps his mouth shut, cutting off his cry, and looks to her. She’s upset, hair falling in her face but he can see her wide, teary eyes through the strands. “Oh God,” he says and starts to reach in to pick her up, but thinks better of it as he looks down at his clothes.

Which are clean. Not a single drop of blood anywhere.

As Rosie’s cries increase and she holds her arms out to him, he checks his hands. Nothing. No blood. No red stain.

His heart hammers like rain on a tin roof, but he gathers Rosie into his arms, and wet-cheeked and torn apart inside, he rocks her back to sleep.

He’ll sleep on the floor again.

* * *

Sherlock looks up, surprise showing on his face as John stands on the landing of 221B. “John,” he says. “Normally you text.”

“Yeah, I uh…” John’s insides rattle with nerves. He’s called out of work, dropped Rosie off at the nursery, and stopped by a pub. He drank two whiskeys without tasting them, and then headed here. To Sherlock. 

Sherlock who is reading him from head to toe, who can no doubt tell that John hasn’t slept, that he’s been drinking - if only a bit - and that he’s experiencing some kind of breakdown.

Right?

_ Unless... _

“Something’s happening to me.” John doesn’t look at Sherlock; he stares at the floor. “You’re not...you’re not drugging me or anything, are you?”

“No!” The sharpness with which Sherlock answers makes John flinch. “You made it very clear to me that that was unacceptable, and...I value your friendship, John.”

John sighs and slides his hands into his jacket pockets. He’s fading. Like an old film negative exposed too long to light. 

“What is it?” Sherlock asks. 

“Nothing, I guess.” John takes one hand out of his pocket and slides it along the side and over the back of his neck in a comforting gesture. “Or something. You don’t suppose...Eurus…”

Sherlock pins him with a look of tremendous concern. “Tell me what’s going on.”

John wraps his arms about himself. “There’s something...at the flat. I can’t explain it. But, I’m dog-tired and my back is killing me and I can’t sleep on the floor of Rosie’s room anymore.” He puts his head in his hands. “Jesus, I sound like a nutter.”

He hears Sherlock approach on soft feet. He’s barefoot, of course, dressed in expensive bespoke clothing beneath a tattered dressing gown. His long, pale feet uncovered. John opens his eyes to look down, his hands still shielding his face. Sure enough, he can see Sherlock’s toes, right in front of John’s shoes. White as marble and perfectly trimmed nails with nail beds the shape of distended half moons.

“John.” Sherlock’s voice rumbles across the tympanum of his ears, striking a chord within John that provides a small measure of relief. “I will listen, and I will help you. Tell me what it is.”

“Something...was in Rosie’s crib the other night.” He balls one fist in his mouth. “I’ve had to shoot people. I’ve been shot. I’ve seen my best friend jump from the rooftop of a building.” Sherlock winces. “I - I’ve never been so scared in my life.” God, it hurt him to admit it. It _ hurts _to admit he’s scared. “It wasn’t Rosie in the crib. She wasn’t in the crib, and I don’t know what was.” He screws his eyes shut. “She’s at the nursery now. I can’t spend another night there alone with her.”

He opens his eyes and drops his hands. Sherlock stands a foot away, his eyes on John’s. He suddenly feels stupid and silly. “God. This is ridiculous. I’m a grown man and it’s like I’m living in some kind of ghost story. And frankly, if there are ghosts, what does it matter if they make noises and play little tricks on a baby monitor? It shouldn’t bother me. It shouldn’t bother anyone. What does it matter?” It was like what Bette said about her mother’s poltergeist.

Sherlock’s eyes narrow and he tilts his head at John. John takes a step backwards. “Anyway, sorry for bothering you.”

“John, you haven’t been here for a week, and you’ve not answered my texts.”

“You’ve texted me?”

“Yes. You didn’t see?” 

“No. I didn’t get any texts, Sherlock.”

“Wait.” Sherlock strides to the window. He seems deep in thought. When he speaks again, he says, “Stay here for the afternoon, John. Take my bedroom if you like, or your old room. You need the rest.”

John casts his gaze to the floor. The old, dark wood is familiar and comforting. The smells of woodsmoke, leftover curry, and baked goods hang in the air. “Yeah. Could do.”

Sherlock stands with his hands clasped behind his back, and gives a sharp nod.

“Okay. I’ll go now.” John drags his feet toward the stairs of his old room.

“John.”

He turns. Sherlock stands tall by the window with his shoulders thrown back and his hands clasped behind him. John’s reminded of the lab at St Bart’s, when this man was all dashing darkness under the bright lights. 

“When you’ve slept, I want you to tell me what you’ve seen, and to not leave a detail out. It’s very important. Then, we shall go to your flat together, and suss out what manner of devil haunts you.”

John knows Sherlock means it as a metaphor. He’ll no doubt find something human behind the happenings. But, he isn’t aware of how the word chills him. 

Haunted, he makes his way up the stairs with weary feet and head.

* * *

John unlocks the door and stands back as Sherlock strides in. He walks the perimeter of the lounge and then heads into the kitchen, his gaze trailing over objects and corners. Rosie watches him with curious eyes as John places her on the ground. 

After his afternoon rest, he felt a little sharper, a little more relaxed. With Sherlock at his back to pick up Rosie, Ms Elwes had given him a questioning look, but said nothing. Rosie pointed to Sherlock and said, “hi,” in a heart-melting little voice. Ms Elwes handed John her diaper bag and chattered about Rosie’s day. Sherlock stood tall and somewhat forbidding. Ms Elwes snuck glances at him, and it made John smirk. 

He helps Rosie out of her jacket and Sherlock comes back into the room. “What is your nightly routine with Watson?” Rosie toddles over to her pile of toys in the corner and picks up a blue ball. She looks at Sherlock and says, “Ball.”

He turns his attention to her. “Very good, Watson. Would you like to play?” He pulls off the Belstaff and slings it over the back of the sofa. 

“Well, we eat dinner first.” John watches as Sherlock folds his legs on the floor and sits to play with Rosie. “Used to be a real pain in the arse to do with a one year old, but Rosie’s been good about amusing herself lately.”

“Then you fix the dinner, and I’ll keep Watson occupied.” Sherlock makes an exaggerated face at her, his mouth and eyes open wide. Her eyes light up as she smiles and drops the ball in his direction. 

“Uh, yeah. I’ll do that.” His face warms for some unidentified reason - or rather, a reason he doesn’t want to examine, and he hurries into the kitchen.

Dinner is pasta alfredo. John adds peas. He cuts bits up for Rosie and makes a plate for himself and one for Sherlock. 

“Dinner’s ready,” he calls.

“Come, Watson!” He hears Sherlock say, and he chuckles to think it’s the same high-handed thing his friend has said often to him, expectant and condescending, but with Rosie, it’s tinged with warmth. Perhaps that’s been there all along for John, too, but hidden by a veneer of careful, purposeful detachment. Sometimes, he feels like he’s just on the edge of understanding something about Sherlock. 

Sherlock comes into the room holding a giggling Rosie Watson, and slides her into her highchair. He glances at the two plates on the table. “No eating on a case, John!” he announces, though he sits at one of the plates.

John harrumphs, and sits down to his own plate. “This isn’t a case.”

“Isn’t it? I do intend to get to the bottom of this mystery.” He places his elbows on the table and claps his hands together. “When do the noises start?”

“I, uh…” John stammers and stumbles his way through the retelling. The hand in the crib. The sound of Rosie waking and crying while she was asleep. The monitor not turning on. The giggling and the rattling of the crib. Waking up to find himself standing, covered in blood, staring down at his sleeping daughter in her crib. He doesn’t tell Sherlock about the strange dreams. 

“Jesus, I sound crazy.”

“Dun, dun!” Rosie announces from the highchair. 

John hasn’t eaten. He shovels a forkful in his mouth before approaching Rosie with a napkin. “Let’s clean you up, Watson.” His face burns with a blush when he realises what he's said. 

Sherlock doesn’t seem to be paying attention, though. His gaze is trained on the ceiling.

Rosie whines as John grabs her hands and wipes them clean. “Noooo!”

“Too bad, poppet, we’re cleaning you up before we let you out.” She shakes her head but ceases her whining, and he releases her from the highchair. 

“And after dinner?”

“Well, I give her a bath. Then I give her a bottle and she goes to bed at seven-thirty.”

“And then?”

John sits back in his chair and twirls the pasta on his fork. “I...usually watch a little telly, or read a book. Build a shelf from Ikea. Lately...I’ve been either going to bed early or watching the monitor, like I said.”

“And before you go to bed, do you hear anything? Smell anything?”

“No. Nothing out of the ordinary. Do you think...could it be a hallucinogen of some sort?”

“My initial thought was carbon monoxide poisoning, but Rosie isn’t exhibiting any of the symptoms.”

John stiffens with dread, as if the hand of fear itself had gripped him by his rib cage and squeezed. “Oh God. I hadn’t even thought of that.” He pushes out his breath in one long rush and clutches his chest. “God. Sherlock.” 

“Be calm,” Sherlocked croons. “Rosie is fine. You are fine.”

“Yeah,” John says and swallows. He stands. “Yeah. Thank you.” He makes himself move to see Rosie in the lounge, dragging her stuffed giraffe by the neck toward her toy chest. He looks back at Sherlock. 

Sherlock meets his gaze. “Anytime.”

John ducks his head, grabs his plate, and walks to the rubbish bin. He scrapes his plate clean with a loud clanging. “It’s time for her bath,” he says, his voice hoarse.

Rosie’s bath is a joyous thing. She laughs, showing flashes of her four tiny teeth, her hair slick with water, and her bath toys floating about her. With Sherlock’s presence in the flat, and having rested, John realises he hasn’t enjoyed moments with Rosie in several days. He’s been living in a haze of heavy clouds, dulling all the noise and muting the color. It feels good to smile again, and feel sincere about it. 

It doesn’t change his bone-deep exhaustion, and the gnawing anxiety at his gut, but it makes it easier to bear.

After Rosie is put to bed, he joins Sherlock in the lounge. He sits on one end of the sofa, his left fist balled into his right hand, his eyes traveling over the ceiling. The Ikea boxes are gone, and the room is just the sofa, a coffee table, a bookshelf, the TV on the wall, and Rosie’s toy chest. 

“So, the noises begin over the monitor in your room?” He says without looking at John.

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll need to sleep there.”

“What?” The floor seems to drop out from below.

Sherlock looks at him. “I’ll need to see things exactly as you see them. I can sleep on the floor if you like, though, as I believe I am the guest, a good host would offer to sleep on the floor while I take the bed.”

“Not bloody likely,” John says as he regains his mental sense of balance. “It’s my bed and I’ve slept on the floor too many times this past week. You want to sleep in my room? You take the floor.”

Sherlock’s nostrils flare, but John can see the twitch of merriment around his eyes. “Rude,” he says. “Though it’s probably better than this sofa. Where on earth did you find this thing? It’s like it’s been put together with cardboard and cloth from the bargain bin. I think it’s actually an upcycle of the bin itself.”

John attempts a scoff, but it erupts into laughter. “Posh git. Why don’t you get started on your bathroom routine so that we have some hope of going to bed at a reasonable hour tonight.” He turns his head before Sherlock can see his blush. 

In the bedroom, he places the monitor in its usual spot, to his right on the nightstand. He pulls the comforter over him. Sherlock appears in the doorway carrying a blanket and pillow from the linen closet of the bathroom. He wears a long-sleeved shirt, inside out, and red pyjama pants. His feet are bare. 

John pulls his eyes away and flops down on his back. He feels a twinge, an ache still left over from his time on Rosie’s floor. His own floor isn’t going to be any more comfortable than hers.

“Alright, fine. Get in the bed.” 

“Beg your pardon?” Sherlock says.

“I said, get in the bed. Stay on your side and don’t hog the blankets.” John rolls over on his side to face the wall. The mattress dips beside him. The springs creak as Sherlock settles in, gently pulling the comforter over him. Then he lies still, too still, on the other side of the bed.

John’s insides quiver with unease. The other man’s proximity is torturous, both too close and not close enough. _ It’s my fear. I’m scared. _ But Sherlock doesn’t do that, and John can’t face himself, and can’t ask anything of Sherlock anyway. _ Not after everything that’s happened. _

_ Confession is good for the weary, _ his mother’s voice rings in his head. She was repeating their priest, Father Burnham. She went to confession weekly. John stopped at the age of sixteen. 

He keeps his eyes trained on the screen of the monitor, its bluish white light bright in the darkness of his bedroom. 

* * *

John wakes to morning light. The bed is empty. The monitor screen is off, and he doesn’t hear anything through the speakers. 

_ Nothing happened. _

Unless Sherlock and Rosie…

Then he hears Sherlock’s deep voice carry through the wood of his door. And an answering warble. 

He pads out to the kitchen. Rosie sits in her high chair, bits of egg in her hair and on her face. Sherlock is talking. “And then, dear Watson, in using the science of deduction - which I have no doubt we will discuss further as we develop your mind palace - I was able to ascertain that the woman was poisoned by none other than her daughter-in-law. Your father was quite impressed with that one.” Sherlock whirls around, and winks at John. 

John’s cheeks flare and he turns to his coffee maker. _Does he know that the winking is... flirtatious?_ He makes a small noise in his throat before saying, “Teaching her to deduce, then?” He makes his voice as casual as he can, though inside he’s flushed with delight. _ Sherlock. Sherlock thinks he is teaching her how to build a mind palace? _It warms him more than he wants to admit.

“Dada!” Rosie exclaims and waves her hands in the air at him. He grins at her. 

“Let your father have his coffee before you engage him in the finer points of conversation. He’s more agreeable then.” Sherlock puts down a plate of eggs.

John turns to the subject at hand - the elephant in the room - though he’d rather push pins through his eyes. “So, um, did you see or hear anything last night?”

Sherlock sits at the table and fixes John with his gaze. He sips a bit of coffee from John’s RAMC mug. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

John pushes air out of his nostrils and finishes adding milk to his coffee. He sinks into the chair. “Of course. Of course nothing would happen while you’re here.” It’s like Mary’s ghost, that hallucination that followed him about, picking through his guilt and his anger. The first time Sherlock hugged him in all the years of their acquaintance was enough to cause her to vanish.

“John.” Sherlock seems to be choosing his words carefully, which is unlike him. “You...you’ve had some very trying months. You’ve recently moved and you’re not getting enough sleep -” 

“No! No, Sherlock. I know what I saw. I’m not crazy.” 

“I’m not speaking to insanity,” his deep voice rumbles in a quiet tone. “I’m speaking of stress responses. You’re not sleeping well, you’re not eating well - you’ve lost weight, you’re experiencing depression and anxiety -”

“No.” John’s voice is edged with a granite hardness.

“These are not weaknesses. You’re a single parent and a widower, and -” 

“You don’t believe me.”

The flat is quiet.

“I believe that you’re experiencing something. And I am here for you.” Shame came raining down around John. Sherlock is always there, always forgiving, always showing a capacity for love that John didn’t know he had. _ Look at him with Eurus. Even with Mycroft. With Mary. _

_ With you. _

_ “The ultimate blasphemy is the unforgivable sin,” said Father Burnham. “That of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Should you ever despair that your evils are beyond God’s forgiveness, then you have committed the eternal sin.” _

That wasn’t the one, though it pings against his conscience.

_ “Should you find yourself envying the goodness of another, you have committed the eternal sin.” _

There it is.

John’s chest is tight and he avoids letting Sherlock see his face. He pretends to be fascinated by the swirls of milk in his coffee.

“Dun!” Rosie wiggles her fingers. “Dun!” Sherlock hops up with a napkin and begins the process of de-egging her.

“Do eat up, John. Not all hope is lost, and I need you fit.”

John stares at the eggs. He feels the weight of his phone in his pocket. He hears the scrabbling at the wood of the crib. The rattling noise. The crib shaking.

Rosie outside the crib. _ Mama. _

John looks at Sherlock. “The other night, when I asked Rosie how she got out of the crib, she said ‘mama.’”

Sherlock is lifting Rosie from the highchair. He places her on his hip and swivels his face to John’s. 

“She doesn’t know the word mama.”

“Are you certain it’s what she said?”

“I heard it, very clearly, with my own two ears.”

He’s choked with the feeling that he might have heard wrong. But he’s got to make Sherlock believe him. He’s not the liar here.

_ He’s not. _

Sherlock’s face shadows and his lips purse as he slowly lets Rosie onto the floor. Rosie holds out her arms, unaware of the grave conversation between the two adults, and hugs John’s leg, laying her tousled head against his knee. 

“Okay, John. I’ll come back tonight.”

“No.” John touches the pocket of his trousers where the phone is tucked. “No. You’ve done enough. I can’t ask...I can’t ask for more.”

He doesn’t miss the fall of Sherlock’s face in his periphery. He touches the top of Rosie’s head, and she lifts shining eyes up to meet his. “We’ll be fine. Thank you.” He clears his throat. “Please.”

Sherlock gives a nod. Then he goes to the lounge and John can hear him gather his Belstaff. He appears in the doorway of the kitchen. “John. Anything. Anytime. You can tell me. You will have my help.” He directs these lines of speech to Rosie.

John keeps his gaze on Rosie, too. “Thank you,” he rasps.

“I’ll be off then, Watson. Treat your father well. He’s had a rough go of it.”

John’s heart twists at the thought of Sherlock leaving. But humiliation burns in his face and in his gut and he doesn’t know what to do with it. 

Rosie seems to understand that Sherlock is leaving, because she says, “B’bye” and waves.

_ It’s wrong to envy the goodness of another. _

“Sherlock. Um, before you go.” _ What am I saying? _ He grasps for something. He can do this. He’s John Watson. “I, uh, need to say this.” His hand is still on Rosie’s head, who is examining a thread on his jeans. “You’re different since you’ve come back. You’re...you’re a better person.” _ I’ve been a worse person. _ He watches as Rosie picks the thread and stares at it on her fingers. “You didn’t deserve that letter. I’m sorry.”

_ Confession is good for the weary. _

“John.” Sherlock’s voice is soft, and full of...surprise? Wonder? Grief? “John. You can’t keep up this cycle of self-loathing. It isn’t good for you.”

“Please…” _ I don’t need anyone’s forgiveness but yours. _ “Please forgive me.”

There’s a pause, and then Sherlock’s voice, steady and reassuring. “I forgive you.”

Sherlock leaves the room, and the air seems to leave with him.

John closes his eyes as he hears the click of the front door.

* * *

The soles of his shoes thud lightly against the metal of the staircase. The lighting is dim and flickering, but he can see a door at the landing. 

He turns the knob, pushes the door open and gets blasted with a frigid wind. As he steps out and looks over the rooftop, the air stings through his clothes. He can see the rooftops of other buildings in the bright sun, hear the noise of cars and buses below. 

But the significant part of the view is the man standing at the roof edge. 

“Sherlock,” he says, his voice cracked and afraid. “Sherlock.” He approaches quietly and quickly. “Sherlock, please look at me.”

The man, dressed in his Belstaff and blue cashmere scarf, turns. His eyes are hollow, iced over, prismatic in color but distant and...was that fear?

“Sherlock. Please. Come away from there,” John says and holds out his hand. “You - you’re scaring me.”

“John.” His baritone quavers. 

“Sherlock.” John takes another step. “Please.”

Sherlock shakes his head. “No. It’s better this way.”

“No. No. I’m - not for me it isn’t.”

Sherlock looks up at the sky. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

John’s heart seizes. Is this how it ends? A madman on the ledge against the afternoon sky and John reaching out, too little too late. “Sherlock, please.”

“No. You were right about me. I only care about myself and the game. I don’t care about people.”

“That’s not true!” John says. “Don’t, please, don’t do this to me again.”

“But that’s what people do.” Sherlock meets his gaze. “People hurt each other.”

“Not if they can’t help it,” John breathes. “Sometimes, sometimes they don’t mean to. Sometimes, things get so fucked up that it seems like you can’t get unstuck. But I think we can.”

“No. You’re lying.” Sherlock’s body faces his. “You’ve been lying.” And he steps backwards, off the ledge.

“No!” John screams as he darts forward, his hands grasping nothing but the open air. 

He is looking down at cars with their headlights on. The sky is no longer a sunny, cold afternoon sky, but dark with nary a star to be seen. 

John is standing on the roof of St. Bart’s, and Sherlock isn’t in a broken heap on the sidewalk.

Someone’s hands are at his back, gripping his jacket, and yanking him back onto the roof. Someone’s voice by his ear. “John!” 

_ Sherlock_.

“John! Wake up!” John finds himself in Sherlock’s lap, only feet away from the ledge.

Sherlock grabs him by his face and looks at him, his blue eyes frantic as his hands hold his cheeks. “John?”

“Sh-Sherlock,” John gasps as his heart thunders against his breastbone.

“What were you doing?”

“I-I...I don’t know.” Parts of John’s legs touch the rooftop and the cold bites through the cloth. _ Am I in pyjamas? _ He’s wearing his jacket. “What...what’s happening? How did I get here?”

“You left your home and walked a ways and then you rode the tube. I was watching your flat and I followed you. I swore you were awake. You’ve been sleepwalking. I see that now. Have you ever walked in your sleep before?”

_ Waking up over Rosie covered in blood. _

But the blood wasn’t real.

_ Was it? _

“Oh god, where’s Rosie?” John grips Sherlock’s Belstaff.

“I…” Sherlock stares.

“Oh God,” John whines. His whole body shakes and a sour liquid gathers in his throat. “I’ve gone and left her.”

Sherlock pulls him to his chest, draping heavy arms around him. “Whatever this is, John, I am here. I will protect you.”

_ It’s Sherlock; who would he bother protecting? _ His own words slip in at the edges of his awareness like thin blades beneath skin.

“Oh fuck.” John twists away from Sherlock and gags. Bits of dinner and stomach bile hit the rooftop.

“It’s okay. You’re all right.” Sherlock’s voice is soft, soothing. It cuts through the wind and across John’s conscience.

“No, it’s not alright.”

“Come to Baker Street, John. It’s always been your home.” Sherlock’s hand strokes across John’s back. “We’ll get Rosie.”

John’s whole body is still wracked with nerves, rattling his bones between the adrenaline and the cold. He shakes his head. _ He doesn’t deserve forgiveness. _

The eternal sin. 

John laughs.

Sherlock’s hand stops stroking. “John?”

“No,” John says. “No. I won’t hurt you anymore.” He pulls away from Sherlock. “I have to go home, to Rosie.”

“John-”

“No. No. Just stay away from me.” John stumbles, rights himself, and takes off for the rooftop door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm @vulpesmellifera on both Tumblr and Twitter if you'd like to follow me. 
> 
> Thank you for reading this far. The last chapter will be posted this Halloween.


	4. Be Bold, Be Bold, But Not Too Bold

> **Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,**
> 
> **Lest that your heart's blood should run cold.'**
> 
> ** **-Joseph Jacobs, “Mr. Fox,” ** ** _English Fairy Tales_ ** **

The rain falls against the window, leaving vertical trails along the glass. His coffee, likely his fifth or sixth cup by now, is cold. Hands folded in his lap, eyes dry and heavy, his back is aching - but then, he’s been here all day. 

Unable to go home on his own and stare at the walls once he’d dropped Rosie off at the nursery, he's wandered here. He’s gone over in his mind what he’s seen, what he’s heard, and what he’ll do. Traced it over and over, wearing tracks where synapses have fired again and again, unable to make sense of anything.

_ Come to Baker Street_, Sherlock had said, as if John can just erase the monster he is. As if John can erase all the memories, the guilt, and can pretend as if he’d never raised a hand to Sherlock, never went back to the person who shot him and then blamed him for that person’s death. Not with all this swirling and squelching and tearing inside him. Not without a hope of forgiveness and absolution. 

He’s no better than his father. Who did them all a favour by leaving.

And after everything with Eurus. _ God_. He can’t ask Sherlock to support him and Rosie now. He can’t ask Sherlock for _ more. _

The nursery is down the street. John checks his watch. It’s almost time to pick Rosie up. He looks again to the raindrops on the pane. 

Last night, he’d hurried home, taking a taxi. He realised he didn’t have his wallet - _ how the hell did he ever get all the way to Bart’s? _ \- and had to run inside to grab it. He’d checked on Rosie, who, thankfully, was asleep. He’d paid the cabbie with cash and apologies, and then stumbled back inside the flat. 

He slept on the awful Ikea sofa. He left Rosie’s monitor in his bedroom.

If she cried, he’d hear her. Eventually. 

He checks his watch again. It’s time. 

* * *

The door opens to the doughy face of Ms Elwes. Her eyes widen slightly and her mouth sets in a firm line. “Oh, hello Doctor Watson.”

“Ms Elwes,” John nods. He tries for joviality. “How’s my little Rosie today?” He looks over her shoulder into the room full of vibrant children’s toys and small wooden furniture.

“She’s behaving alright, Doctor...but, if we could go outside for just one moment.” She holds up a finger to one of the other teachers, a dark haired woman with a freckled face, who catches a look at John and then nods to Mrs. Elwes.

Trepidation creeps into his gut and weighs him down. “Is something wrong?”

“Well, not as such, Doctor Watson. I have a small concern, and I’m sure there’s nothing to it, but I have to speak with you.”

“Yes? What is it?” John’s heart thumps.

“Well, the day before yesterday, we noticed a small bruise on Rosie’s left shoulder.”

John’s brow furrows and he crosses his arms. There's a dull roar in his ears like the distant lapping of waves at the beach. “A bruise?”

“Yes.” The woman seems very nervous as she twists her fingers. “And today, there are several bruises along her back. Now, she’s at the age where falls occur quite a lot, so I’m sure that’s the explanation. But they have been noted in our logs and we may have to call -”

“Excuse me?” The noise in John’s head ratchets up to a roar. “Are you accusing me?”

“Now, Doctor Watson, we’re giving you the benefit of the doubt here -”

“Oh, how kind,” he sneers. 

“Surely, you must have seen them yourself!” she says.

John stops. He’d given Rosie a bath last night. He’d seen her bare skin. He can remember the smooth, cream-colored baby skin of her back. “I...didn’t…”

“They appear to be recent, Doctor Watson.” Ms Elwes’ voice is hard. She’s not fidgeting anymore.

_ Oh God. He’d left and - he was at Bart’s and - _

“Is there anyone else in the home?”

Sherlock had been there, but there were no bruises on her last night, and Sherlock only speaks to Rosie kindly and gives her gentle touches. _He treats Rosie with more respect than he treats anyone else._

He remembers Bette, chatting over lunch. _ If the ghost doesn’t hurt anyone… _

Christ, what was he thinking? _ There is no such thing as ghosts. _

He’s been sleep walking. He’s been dreaming. He’s scared Rosie several times. _Could...could I have - ?_

The thought makes him sick to his stomach. He breaks out in a sweat as he tries to answer her question in a level voice.

“No one has been near her except for me. I didn’t see her fall.” He almost hopes Ms Elwes will call the agency. Maybe they can place Rosie somewhere while John gets himself together.

_ Jesus Christ_.

He wonders how he looks. Giant bags under his eyes and - did he even comb his hair this morning?

“But she’s so active at home, and I’m by myself and making dinner and everything, and I...sometimes don’t see what she’s doing." He sniffs. "Erm... But she’s never far away, and I haven’t heard her fall or heard her cry about getting hurt, or anything like that.”

Ms Elwes nods. “Doctor Watson, no one is accusing you of abusing Rosie. I’m concerned, though.”

“Yeah. Me too.” He stares at his feet. _ God, were they going to take her away now? _

“I can see that you’re quite upset by this. Just, try to keep an eye on her, as best as you can. And on those who come near her.”

“Of course.” John feels mixed parts relief and incredulity. They probably feel sorry for him, being widowed only several months before. 

Ms Elwes opens the door and lets him enter. Rosie lights up when she sees him and runs to meet him. He bends down to welcome her into his arms. “Hi, sweetheart.” He senses their eyes on them. 

But they always watch their reunion every time, didn’t they? _ This isn’t anything new, _he tells himself. 

“Let’s go home and make dinner, shall we?” Trying to sound cheerful for Rosie’s benefit. 

“Baba?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says, and shoulders her bag.

* * *

“Hey, I talked to Nan. I guess some creepy things did happen over there. What aren’t you telling me?” Harry asks. Rosie is asleep in his lap, and he watches the telly with the volume low.

“Nothing,” he says. _ My daughter has mysterious bruises on her back. I’ve been sleepwalking. I have nightmares. Something is wrong with the baby monitor. I’m seeing things. _ “I mean, old houses settle, right?”

“Um, yeah…”

“I’ve just heard some weird noises, is all. I’m used to it now.” He tries to push inflection in his voice, but it comes out flat and unhurried. “Probably just the neighbours. Nice folks. Kinda noisy. Thin walls and all.”

“The neighbours?”

“Yeah, upstairs and downstairs.” John shifts. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Rosie’s sleeping in my lap.”

“But John -” He hits the end button.

He turns the phone off. He doesn’t need distractions.

Tomorrow, he’ll start looking for a new place. Meanwhile, he’ll ask Molly or Harry if they wouldn’t mind taking Rosie overnight. He’ll go find a place to live. He can’t go back to Mary’s flat. That would be like taking a step backwards. The closing date’s around the corner and he can use the money.

He needs to stay alert and awake. He carries Rosie back to his bedroom and lays her in the bed, propping pillows around her to keep her from rolling off. He grabs his laptop, gets into bed beside her, and begins the hunt for a new place.

He unplugs the baby monitor.

* * *

John hears it. The baby monitor static. 

The unplugged baby monitor.

He's been sitting here for about an hour and a half, and he's awake, and definitely just heard static.

It buzzes to life for a second and off. Then again. A few seconds longer of rippling static. Voices. Soft whispers in staccato reaching across the waves.

A giggle.

The hairs on his neck stand on end as nerves light up and shiver down his nape and back. 

Then the monitor is silent.

Another moment passes.

Footsteps in the hallway. Heavy, like a large man’s footsteps.

John holds his tongue against his upper lip as he reaches for his gun. The footsteps fade to the other end of the hallway. Then come close again, stopping halfway down, outside Rosie’s room. John swallows, but his throat is parched. He closes his fingers around the cool steel of the gun and brings it into his lap, pointed at the door.

Rosie’s door opens - 

And slams shut.

The noise startles John, who’s been trying to keep still for fear of waking Rosie. Her breathing shifts, quiets, and John curses himself for moving. 

Then the knocking starts. Across the wall that their bedrooms share, the sharp rapping of someone’s knuckles on the plaster. 

Rosie gives a soft cry as she wakes. 

“Shh, shh, sweetheart,” John says. He leans over her though he keeps his eye on the wall. The knocking grows louder, and he swears that if he’d ever hung anything on the wall, it would have rattled with the force of the knocks. It would have hit the ground with the tremors rippling across the wall. 

Rosie cries out, and John pulls her close, shifting her so her little legs hug his right oblique. He slides from the bed and flips the lamp switch to on.

The baby monitor flares to life with an ear-splitting level of static. The knocking ratchets up in volume, deafens his ears with a sound like a torrential downpour. Rosie’s wails seem distant, ignorable. He keeps his focus on the - _ intruder, enemy, ghost, demon _ \- on the knocking which for some reason reminds him of a poem about bells - the knells and the _ rolling _ and the _ throbbing _ and the _ sobbing _of the bells. The walls seem like they’re moving, the whole room tilts, as if there's an unzipping of gravity - a weightless horror fills the air between him and the shaking wall. 

Heart beating at a bruising pace, he launches himself toward the door. Rosie caterwauls like a wild animal in his arms as he flings it open and holds the gun out ahead of him. The hallway is dark so he hits the lightswitch and floods the space with yellow light. The door to Rosie’s room opens and shuts over and over - no one there, just the door swinging on its hinges of its own volition. 

John stalks forward, Rosie on his hip and screaming, the walls still pounding and throbbing and tolling - _ a muffled monotone _ \- and John can feel his finger on the trigger. His entire world narrows to that long hallway and the overhead light and he searches for movement, something he can perforate with a bullet, something that can make it all stop.

A creak ahead of him catches his attention and a shadow appears at the end of the hall - a tall man - _ large hand on the monitor _ \- and he fires his gun. 

Time slows - the avalanche of knocks on the walls stop and the bullet makes its way to the target in the exact same moment.

The figure falls backwards, crashing to the floor with a loud thud. 

The threads of the world seem to tighten in place, as if a seam was ripped and then repaired. The hallway doesn’t stretch on to forever, but for only the twenty feet that it actually is. The clamoring noise in his ears is the echo of the gunshot, and the muted, fearful cries of his daughter. 

The figure on the ground is still. John holds his gun up and approaches. With the knocking gone and the hall light on, John realises -

The Belstaff. The scarf. 

_ I must be dreaming. _

The mop of dark curls above a ghost-white face that he knows and loves. 

John lets out a high pitched, thin bark of laughter. He’d never shoot Sherlock. It’s a dream. It has to be a dream. _ Oh God, let it be a dream. _

But he’s not waking up.

“Sherlock,” he gasps. “Oh God! Oh my God! Sherlock!” His eyes sting with tears and he falls to his knees as if gravity opened its maw and swallowed him whole. He puts Rosie on the floor and his gun in the back of his pants and crawls toward his friend. “Sherlock, please, please, oh God, please.”

Rosie still screams and some part of his mind tells him not to worry - she isn’t hurt. She’s scared and he needs to comfort her, but this, Sherlock is dead or he's dying - _ a corpse or about to be one _ \- and John needs to know which it is.

With lungs heaving, a raging fire loose in his chest, he yanks the overcoat open. Sherlock groans.

“Oh God, Sherlock?” He smooths his hands over Sherlock’s chest in a frenzy, trying to find the entry wound. But the fabric isn’t right - _ something’s wrong _ \- and something is trying to gain John’s attention in the back of his head, some thought that this isn’t what Sherlock’s chest feels like and if he ever imagined it - _ he did he did _ \- this isn’t right, this can’t be right.

Sherlock opens his eyes.

“You cock,” John says, though it’s without heat or meaning. “You’re wearing a vest.” Tears blur his vision.

The Kevlar vest took the bullet right in the middle of the sternum._ So close to Mary’s bullet. _ John lays his head on Sherlock’s body. Sherlock winces. His breathing is strained. John pulls back. “We need to get you out of it.”

He can ignore everything and focus on this as his medic training kicks in.

No bullets whizzing through the air, no bombs, only the cries of Rosie, which yank at his heart but in this situation, Sherlock might be hurt badly. He's taken a direct hit to the chest - and over an old injury.

He gets Sherlock out of his coat and undoes the vest. Sherlock groans and coughs and flinches, but he lets John remove it from him, and then he leans his forehead onto John’s shoulder. John pushes him back gently, and unbuttons his shirt. An ugly red splotch meets his eyes on Sherlock’s alabaster skin - _ or moonstone or marble or any other lovely thing like a pearl his skin is like a pearl _ \- and is going to make a large bruise, but John nearly cries with relief. “Oh God, I shot you.” He touches the skin, as tenderly as he can, and Sherlock snatches his hand. 

“You shot me,” Sherlock says, and he says it as if he finds it amusing. He leans his forehead onto John’s shoulder again, and this time, John lets him, now that he’s seen the extent of the damage. They don’t release one another. John feels like he could crawl inside the cage of Sherlock’s ribs and curl around his heart, feel its beating - _ to be sure it’s beating _\- for so long as his own heart beats.

Rosie is taking big swallows, and hiccups, and letting out long whines. John turns his head to her and reaches out with his other hand. “Come here, sweetheart. Daddy’s so sorry. So sorry for scaring you. C’mere.”

Rosie crawls on all fours to reach them, and John pulls her into their huddle. 

* * *

It’s getting on three in the morning. Rosie is asleep in John’s old bed. Sherlock doesn’t explain as he presents John with a brand new, still-in-the-box baby monitor. Nonetheless, John finds himself sneaking looks at it, almost afraid every time of what he might see on the monitor. Eventually, Sherlock turns the screen off, and the two men listen to her soft snores as they drink the Lagavulin from the cupboard.

“How did you know?” John’s voice rasps and he undulates his throat muscles in an effort to clear it. “Why did you - what made you go to my flat?”

“Harry called me.” Sherlock’s voice is quiet, careful. “She was...concerned. Because of things you said to her. I watched your flat. Then I heard Rosie crying and I thought I heard you shouting.” Sherlock is sitting in his chair. It reminds John of the night Sherlock invited them to move to Baker Street. “I...I would have watched your flat anyway, after the other night.” 

The only light in the room is the streetlight through the window, and the glow of the fireplace. Sherlock is dressed in his pyjamas and dressing gown. John’s still wearing his clothes, and he hasn’t sat down. He’s been pacing around the room, touching things, glancing at the monitor, looking out the window. He places his drink on the desk and picks it up, then puts it back down again. Everything about 221B is the same, but still he floats in a coffin-shaped malaise. 

John stops moving, and holds himself with crossed arms. “And why were you wearing a vest?”

“You’re a soldier, John. A soldier under duress in possession of a firearm.”

“You knew I’d shoot you?” The hurt is evident in John’s voice.

“I knew it to be a distinct possibility.”

John sniffs. “I suppose I haven’t given you any reason not to think I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“John-”

“There were bruises on Rosie. I - I didn’t put them there.” John cringes, grimaces. “At least, I don’t think I did.” Sherlock doesn’t say anything. “And the sounds, and the monitor -” He clamps a hand over his mouth. 

“I did some investigating of that building,” Sherlock says in a soft rush of words. “If there is one thing I find comfort in when it comes to you, John, it is your steadiness. While you may have hallucinated Mary, I am given to understand that that sort of thing is a common occurrence among widowers. Generally, you are about as imaginative as the average educated and urban Englishman, and not easily given to superstition. I discovered that the building has been empty since 2015, given that the residents all expired due to something faulty with the boiler in the basement.” Even as Sherlock speaks, his cadence even and his words stringing from his lips in quick succession, John fears hearing what he’ll say. “It was winter, and the occupants grew sick and died within a week. The man living in the basement died first, but as he was generally reclusive, no one noticed. The man living on your floor...did not die from carbon monoxide poisoning, but killed himself after finding his child dead. The elderly couple living on the top floor succumbed in the same night.”

The universe stretches thin, elastic to a point before it snaps and crumbles. John sinks to the floor and puts his head in his hands. The roar of the cosmos drowns out the sound of Sherlock, who he can see in the periphery, his mouth moving and his hands gripping John’s biceps. As the roar dulls, John’s throat moves and he realizes he’s laughing and coughing, almost choking on his laughter. 

“John!” Sherlock’s voice punches through the miasma of disbelief. “John!”

“Sherlock,” John says and grabs onto Sherlock’s shoulders. The sense of weightlessness recedes as he holds onto Sherlock. Something real. Something that he can call his and can touch. “_Sherlock_.” Soft curls rest against his temple, a large, warm body curving around his. 

“John,” Sherlock’s voice is impassioned, thick, rough, and low. _ Like a lover’s. _ “John, what is it?”

“The neighbours.” John turns his head and speaks into Sherlock’s hair, close to the shell of his ear. “The older couple was Richard and Hettie. The man downstairs was deaf and his name was Arnie.”

Sherlock pulls back. He still kneels over John who sits on the floor. His eyes zero in on John’s. “Richard and Henrietta Wheatley. Arnold Fletcher.”

John nods, his throat rough and his eyes hot and everything about the room gone around them. There is only he, and Sherlock. “They were there,” he whispers. “I saw them. I talked to them.”

Sherlock’s gaze stays trained on him, piercing and intense. Finally, he nods and leans forward to whisper in John’s ear, “I believe you.”

John is a drowned man that has been snatched by a life raft, someone who’s been rent by the driving waves, tossed haphazardly and broken, now pulled onto solid ground and exposed to warm sunshine. The winds die down and only a soft breeze curls about his body in the form of a man he loves. And who loves him, he realises.

“I wasn’t fair to you,” he says as he clasps Sherlock closer. He hasn’t dared put his arms around Sherlock. But this time, he needs Sherlock to know. “You’ve done so much for me and I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it because I was afraid. I didn’t forgive. I’ve been a monster.” _ Penance. I’ve been paying penance. _“I’ve been punishing myself, and I didn’t see that I was still punishing you.”

_ Confession is good for the weary. _

“I told you to stop with the self-loathing. It isn’t becoming of my John.”

_ My doctor. _

_ My blogger. _

_ My best friend. _

_ My John. _

Their foreheads press together and their noses almost touch. It’s a small movement that allows John to brush his lips across one cheekbone, down Sherlock’s cheek and along his jawline. Sherlock freezes in his arms.

John keeps his nose stroking lightly along Sherlock’s jaw. A question.

“John.” Sherlock’s voice trembles.

“Yeah?” John’s voice is a whisper.

“You...you’re not thinking clearly -”

“It’s...it’s more clear than it’s been for a while.” He kisses that jaw again, his lips touching stubble and warm skin.

“Please.”

That stops him. He expects his heart to race, but it goes at a gentle pace. His muscles relax in their embrace. Sherlock tenses, but then he sinks into John. John looks at his face. His irises are nearly gone in the firelight, heavy with a mix of fear and desire.

“I won’t insult you by trying to convince you now,” John says. “But I’ll show you. I’ll make it up to you.”

“You...you never have to make anything up to me, and certainly not like this. Not if it isn’t...what you want.”

“I want to,” John says. “Because I’m...” _ I’m ready. But is Sherlock? _

Sherlock continues, “You’ve been half out of your mind with exhaustion and fear -”

“I won’t do anything tonight.” John strokes one hand down Sherlock’s arm, like gentling a frightened animal. “Let me show you, tomorrow. We’ll...we’ll sleep and we’ll get started on our day, and then let me show you.”

Sherlock avoids his eyes. “Does this mean...you’ll move back here with Rosie?”

John giggles. He knows he sounds ridiculous, but even with everything that’s happened, he’s elated. “Yeah. Yeah. I’ll move here with Rosie. No way in hell am I going back to that flat, anyhow.”

Sherlock snorts, and they stay like that, holding onto each other, for just a little while longer.

* * *

The light is soft, and the walls remind him of the inside of a mollusk shell - pearlescent and somehow ethereal - the unexpected beauty that comes from prying open something hard and ugly. The blankets are heavy, warm, and it’s been ages since he’s had such a comfortable sleep. 

John doesn’t believe in the same things his mother believed in, but that doesn’t mean that the concept of truth and forgiveness hasn’t weighed on him. He asked Sherlock for the truth that night, when he’d cornered him on Eurus and family and the nature of their friendship. And Sherlock had given it to him. 

It’s always been there. Sherlock has always given him what he could of himself. 

_ And there was so much there. _

A long sought understanding slips into place, like beads on a string.

So much he refused to see, because it meant having to face his own truths. That he was, in some ways, like his father; in others, he was like his mother. 

Lastly, the truth: that he shares a similarity with Harry - one that both his parents would have denounced. His father with shouts and fists, and his mother with shouts and prayer. 

He and Sherlock have both been lying to themselves and each other, in different ways, perhaps, but both are shaped by their families.

More lies, more omissions, will only lead to more heartbreak. 

Forgiveness is an ongoing process, and it is aided by truth. Especially in living one's own truth.

He notices the quiet. He rolls over to see Rosie’s crib - empty. Instead of panic striking him through the gut, he listens. Strains to hear what’s going on below. He hears the soft rumble of a deep voice and the bird-like warbling of his daughter. 

John gets up and pads down the stairs.

Rosie and Sherlock are in their pyjamas, sitting on the sofa with Sherlock’s laptop in his lap. Rosie sits tucked into his side, his arm around her shoulders. When she sees John she smiles and points at him. “Dada.”

“Very good, Watson.” Sherlock hits pause on their video, which upsets Rosie who immediately demands, “More, more, more.” He hits play again and tosses an apologetic look to John. It’s so unlike the Sherlock he expects, that it nearly knocks the breath from him. For so long he’s had this idea of who Sherlock is that he forgot to really look, and to really listen, and to know what was in front of him all along.

He slides beside Sherlock on the sofa. They’re watching a YouTube video of the Muppets singing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” When they reach the part where Animal sings “Mamaaa,” Rosie echoes the song with her own “Mama,” and John is reminded of her strange escape from her crib.

“Did you watch this with her before?”

“I did.” 

“Oh.” 

Sherlock meets his eyes. He knows.

John shakes his head. “For now, I want to enjoy this.”

Sherlock’s lips pull into a small smile, and he shifts his gaze back to the video. His hand lays on the sofa beside his thigh. His other hand is around Rosie. 

John moves his hand to cover Sherlock’s, and slides his fingers to interlace them together. Sherlock doesn’t move, though John can tell he’s watching him from the corner of his eye. 

He gives Sherlock’s hand a squeeze, reveling in the sensation of his warm skin and the protrusions of his knuckles, and the sense of bone and blood and brotherhood between them.

And now, there is the promise of something more, especially if the soft flush of carmine on Sherlock’s cheeks signifies anything.

He’ll send someone else for his things. He’s not going back to that flat.

He’s right where he belongs, in this home, with this man, and Rosie.

And like the final stitch going into place, he remembers what it is to feel whole. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a gorgeous illustration of the scene where John, Sherlock, and Rosie huddle together on the floor, please check out khorzair's [work](https://khorazir.tumblr.com/post/188903190103/inspired-by-the-beautiful-and-quite-scary) on Tumblr! It's a perfect rendition of the scene!
> 
> A special thanks goes to my daughter, Little Vulpes, who is the original inspiration for this fic due to her midnight creeping on the baby monitor. 
> 
> Another round of applause to my betas, notjustmum and ReynardinePotter! You keep me right! <3
> 
> THANK YOU READERS. Especially to those who left kudos and comments. To those who left comments - it's been a tremendous thrill to read them. They energized my days and made posting this story even more fun. It's made me think I should write more horror! 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who joined in on A Halloween 13. You all made the calendar a success, and I hope to do it again next year. 
> 
> If you're still in the mood for a little more spook, and you like Mystrade and ESP, check out [The Tenth Muse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17593490/chapters/41470481). 
> 
> If you're more into Sherstrade, you might like [[Deleted]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18951967), which features a childhood fear coming back to haunt DI Lestrade.
> 
> Happy Halloween everyone!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for Haunted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27182935) by [bluebellofbakerstreet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebellofbakerstreet/pseuds/bluebellofbakerstreet)


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